


Lullaby of Birdland

by Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Age Difference (past), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Classical Music, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse (past), Guys I swear this has a happy ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Jazz - Freeform, M/M, Music, VictUuri, Victor might also be running from something, Victor plays piano, yuuri is still a figure skater
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-25 22:42:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 92,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9849779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities/pseuds/Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities
Summary: In another world, their story might have started with ‘Hi there’, or ‘Lovely sky tonight’, or ‘Hello, stranger’. Or perhaps something less cliché, something like: ‘A commemorative photo? Sure thing!’But in this one, it starts with an electric blue cocktail, the taste of smoke in the air. And: “You have really talented, um. Fingers.”Yuuri makes music with his body. Victor makes music because that's all he knows.(Or: After his poor performance at the Grand Prix Final, Yuuri is weary but not broken, and decides to give it one last shot. Victor plays piano three nights a week at a small jazz bar near the Detroit Skating Club, and does his best to get by.)





	1. To Reveal, In a Phrase, How I Feel

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This fic will reference a lot of music, and I've included some inline (Youtube) links to the songs in question when they come up in the fic. It would be ideal if you're reading this on a device/medium that (1) includes audio, and (2) allows you to open the links in such a way as to have the music playing in the background, but it's really not a requirement. Feel free to ignore them if you find the sudden links disruptive; they'll be listed again in the end notes of every chapter.
> 
> You can also find all of the music in these playlists (updated with every chapter update):  
> 
> 
> [jazz playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1Rw0FqbhdFBtILc-IzVb_qQ4EkcL65nK) | [non-jazz playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1Rw0FqbhdFClF-wG-rYCaIXoFF92Cxyu)
> 
> Enjoy! Comments, feedback, etc. give author +5 life points \\(^ヮ^)/

In another world, their story might have started with _‘Hi there’_ , or _‘Lovely sky tonight’_ , or _‘Hello, stranger’_. Or perhaps something less cliché, something like: _‘A commemorative photo? Sure thing!’_

But in this one, it starts with an electric blue cocktail, the taste of smoke in the air. And: “You have really talented, um. Fingers.”

He isn’t sure which of them is more shocked, really. The pianist gapes at him for a good, long moment, jaw slack and his blue eyes impossibly wide. At the very least, the rest of the band seems to be enjoying their little intermission -- the singer-slash-trumpet-player freezes mid-puff of his cigarette, while the young drummer with olive skin stares at his snare with his lip twitching, trying not to smile. The pretty redhead next to him doesn’t even try, clinging onto her upright bass for support as she collapses into laughter.

“Thank... you,” comes the confused reply, followed by a soft chuckle. “Is this your first time at _Butcher’s Keys?_ I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

Yuuri feels himself blushing to the roots of his hair. Right. What he wanted to say, of course, was that he enjoyed their music, the piano especially, and wished to convey that. Maybe he can go back even further, say something about how he isn’t really into jazz, and he isn’t really into bars, and so therefore he’s doubly not really into jazz bars -- but Phichit insisted, and for some reason it had to be ‘today today _today’_ . Yuuri was still jet-lagged from his flight and he didn’t think he’d enjoy himself tonight at all, but their music had surprised him. And _he_ had surprised him, the Piano Man with his dancing fingers and beautiful music, and Yuuri wants to thank him. For that. For the music.

He thinks he got all of that out loud, somehow.

And it must have made at least half as much sense to the pianist as it had to him, because the man smiles easily, and turns on the bench to face him. “I’m honored. I’m thrilled to hear that our music has brought you such pleasure.” The pianist leans in closer, and his voice drops low. “We’ve still got a few minutes left before the next set. Shall I play you something at your request? Something that might excite you?”

The first coherent thought that forms in Yuuri’s head, past the internal screaming and minor panic at how hot his face feels, is: _is he making fun of me?_

Trick question, they’re probably all making fun of him. The bassist obviously is, she’s practically doubled over and in tears. God damn it. He blames Phichit for this, and for taking forever in the bathroom. He blames the 14-hour time difference between Hasetsu and Detroit. He blames Minako-sensei’s voice for somehow being an ever-present entity in his head, popping up at the most inopportune times to say things, like tonight’s ‘ _You should put yourself out there more!_ ’

He blames the pianist’s eyes, how very blue they are, the way they pop against his pale skin and hair… and wow, now that he’s looking at them up close, they’re even bluer than the drink he’s had, Curaçao and something else, and he swears he counted five liquors in there. Phichit’s recommendation, naturally.

“Yuuri!”

Saved by the bell. “U-umm… m-maybe, maybe some other time?” Yuuri focuses on the rims of his glasses so that he won’t be distracted by the pianist’s eyes. Not that it matters for much longer, because he’s already stepping back, towards Phichit’s voice. Coward. “Good night!”

He whirls around, away from the stage. He squeezes himself through the tiny spaces between the tables, finds Phichit by the wrist, and pulls him out of the bar.

Phichit protests, of course. So Yuuri tells him, through clenched jaw and a haze of renewed embarrassment, why they can never set foot in that bar again.

On one hand, Phichit eventually stops protesting.

On the other hand, he pretty much laughs all the way to the dorms.

 

* * *

 

_‘My name is Katsuki Yuuri. I’m a dime-a-dozen figure skater certified by the Japan Skating Federation. Last year, I managed to make it all the way to the Grand Prix Finals in Sochi, but the family dog died and I ended up stress-eating the night before the competition, flubbed all my jumps, and wound up in dead-last place. Then I screwed up the rest of the competitive season so badly that everyone thought I was injured, but the embarrassing thing is that I wasn’t, it was all in my head._

_What else? Oh, I’m 23 years old. I guess that’s important.’_

“ -- uuri? Yuuri?”

“Huh?” He snaps his head up, startled out of the imaginary introduction he’s been crafting to go with the imaginary apology that he wants to give to the unfortunately-not-imaginary pianist from two nights ago. “Sorry Phichit, I didn’t catch that, what?”

“I said heads up, I’m gonna try my quad toe again!”

Yuuri glides out of his way, heading for the boards. He doesn’t have to, it’s not like there’s anyone but the two of them on the ice this late in the day. But he figures now is as good a time to take a break as any.

_‘I’m getting old, for a figure skater,’_ his inner thoughts continue, unhelpfully. He’s starting to wonder if this imaginary one-sided conversation has a point to it, or if it’s just another instance of his ‘mental self-flagellation’ again -- Minako-sensei’s words, not his. _‘I actually thought about retiring this season. I finished up the last of my college credits and even spent a couple of months back home to clear my head. Eventually, I came to the decision -- or my ballet teacher convinced me through a lot of yelling, it was one or the other -- that I should do one more season. Sort of a ‘farewell year’, if that makes any sense. It’s not like I was doing anything back home anyway. And in the end, I think I got bored of being depressed. So… yeah.’_

“Yuuri.” Celestino hands him a water bottle. “Have you started giving some thought to your programs for this coming season?”

Yuuri swallows down several gulps of water before responding. “Um, not really, no.”

“I know it’s still early. But I was wondering if you wanted to choose your own music this time?”

Celestino has been asking this every year. Yuuri only brought him a piece once, a soft piano piece that a friend of Phichit’s had composed for him. There wasn’t really any deep or meaningful connection to it at the time; he just liked the melody a lot, and the piano’s simplicity calmed him.

But Celestino didn’t like it, so that was the end of that. Ever since then, Yuuri’s always had his coach pick his music for him, believing this was what was best for both of them.

Now, though, he’s not so sure. Something -- and he’s not sure what it is, but it could be the fact that this is his last year, or Minako-sensei’s words again, or maybe a memory of a night out that he refuses to dwell on -- _something_ gives him pause, and before he knows it he’s saying, “I’ll think about it.”

He can’t read the smile Celestino gives him. He watches Phichit launch himself into the air, counts -- one, two, three, four. But he forgets to check the rotation when he lands, and ends up stumbling to skate in a line.

“Your landings are getting better,” Yuuri tells him, and he means it. “Just a bit more practice.”

“I guess so. I’ll get it done this year, for sure.”

“I think you’ll have it by the Grand Prix.”

“Really?”

It’s hard not to smile when Phichit’s eyes light up. “Really.” He means that, too. The younger skater didn’t seriously start thinking about quads until late last season, and Yuuri knows that all he wants is to land it in competition this year.

Actually, he recalls now, that’s not true. There’s something else that Phichit wants even more, a piece from _The King and the Skater_ that he absolutely wants to use for his Short Program. Yuuri wonders if he’ll try that this year, and what Celestino might say. Then again, the significance of a Thai skater choosing _Shall We Skate?_ won’t be lost on anyone, so Celestino will probably say yes.

The way Phichit laid out his plans, sitting on his bed in their dorm room with his hamsters crawling all over him while he played the music on his phone -- it seemed so easy. ‘This is it. This is the music that I want. Okay.’

Okay.

“Hey, I didn’t realize how late it’s gotten,” Phichit wipes the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he pauses to glance over at Yuuri, who’s still standing idly at the side of the rink. “I’m heading back home, you coming?”

Yuuri chews on his bottom lip. He stares at his skate guards.

“You go on ahead. I’ll follow in a bit.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri does not follow in a bit.

In fact, he doesn’t follow at all. His footsteps take him past the main intersection that branches off to ‘home’ and guide him a half-dozen blocks away, down a small side street, until he’s standing in front of a buzzing red sign for _Butcher’s Keys_. It’s past 10 pm at this point, and he doesn’t need to go inside to know that the live music has already started; he can hear it from out on the street, flowing over him like a warm, jittery embrace.

He stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets, and glances at the chalkboard at the front of the bar.

 

_Tonight’s musical guests:_  
**_ Georgi P and the Sticky Splinters_**  
_Trumpet - Georgi P_  
_Drums - Mad Leo Iggleton_  
_Bass - Babs Milady  
Piano - Vice_

 

Yuuri can’t remember if this is the same lineup as the last time he was here. He has half a mind not to find out, but something about having doubled what should have been a short walk home only to leave empty-handed irritates him. _One_ drink, he tells himself. One drink and a formal apology to the pianist -- and maybe, just maybe, if he hasn’t chickened out yet: a request to pick at the band’s brains for a musical recommendation?. Then, he’ll leave.

The place is packed tonight, but he manages to snag a spot at the bar. “Evening!” the bartender greets him. “What would you like?”

“Um…” Yuuri squints, trying to remember what a good go-to drink would be. He’s definitely not going to order whatever Phichit got for him last time. Nothing else seems to come to mind though. “Ah, do you have a recommendation?”

“Well, our French 75’s are half-off tonight,” she offers. “Some people say it has the kick of a French 75mm field gun, which to me is a good thing!”

Yuuri’s not sure he agrees, but it’s not like he plans on having more than one of those anyway. “Okay, thanks.”

There’s not much light here. Just like last time, it looks like they’ve focused the lighting on the stage, and dimmed it everywhere else. Which means that he can clearly see now that the band is the same as last time’s, as they start a new song. Georgi P must be the tall, dark-haired man blowing on the trumpet as though he were making love to it, all smooth, sweet notes that cut through the air and the smoke with something earnest. It looks like the drums and bass are laying low for this number, but Yuuri can see the drummer nodding along in time with his soft beats, eyes closed with a smile on his face, while the bassist gazes fondly at…

Wait. Why is she looking at -- ?

_“They’re writing songs of love, but not for me…”_

[Oh](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o661KZwx2JQ).

_“A lucky star’s above, but not for me…”_

Maybe he couldn’t tell at first, because he’s sitting in a spot where he’s facing the back of the piano, and he’s too distracted by the shock of platinum hair that swishes as the pianist moves. But. Oh.

Georgi is the one headlining the band, that much is clear. But for whatever reason, he’s not the one singing tonight.

“ _With love to lead the way_  
_I’ve found more clouds of gray  
Than any Russian play can guarantee…_ ”

“Here’s your drink, sir. Would you like to open a tab?”

“Ah, yeah… thanks.” Yuuri takes a sip -- holy wow, okay, she was not kidding, it’s basically champagne with a kick, but what a kick it is. At the very least, it jostles him out of his trance long enough to realize a few things. Namely, that the pianist’s voice is like honey, saccharine and rich with just a hint of his accent slipping in here and there.

It makes a bit of sense that he chose the nickname ‘Vice’, because you could listen to that voice all night, every night.

And maybe Yuuri is going to have to re-calibrate: one drink might not be enough to talk to him, when he sings like _that_.

_“I was a fool to fall and get that way  
_ _Heigh-ho, alas, and also lack-a-day…”_

Yuuri chugs back his drink and barely tastes the kick anymore. He just feels warm, now, and orders another before he can think about it.

_“Although I can’t dismiss the memory of her kiss…”_

The pianist’s eyes are still so very blue. Yuuri realizes, a few seconds later than he should, that he noticed this because the man called Vice had glanced up, and met his eyes.

Oh.

_“I guess she’s not for me…”_

The notes from Georgi’s trumpet in his solo that follows run high, divine. Yet all Yuuri can pay attention to are the chords the pianist plays along, imagining them like playful little punctuation marks. He doesn’t even notice when the trumpet drops off again, and Vice picks up the rest of the solo. He hits the keys harder this time, and from the way the notes climb and fall and climb again, he can imagine long fingers dancing across the keys, teasing them, making them sing.

Another French 75 comes and goes. Around this time, someone buys Vice a drink -- something clear, with a slice of lime. Babs Milady ad libs something on her guitar when he stops playing, and Yuuri watches him raise the glass in gratitude, gracing the audience with a wink and a heart-shaped smile.

Yuuri drinks at the same time. Or rather, the pianist chugs and slams it back in one go, sighing with something that sounds like _‘vkusno!’_ Yuuri almost chokes on his drink as it burns.

He gets another, and he’s not sure why.

Vice attacks the keys with a renewed vigor after that. His hands come down like he might be trying to break the piano, but the calm smile on his face softens it. By the time the instrumental is over, and he begins to sing again, Yuuri’s not too sure how many French-whatever’s he’s had.

He’s… actually not even sure this is still the same song anymore, at this point. But he vaguely remembers not having eaten dinner, and something about a rule Phichit made up about always alternating cocktails with water. It’s far too late to remedy either of those, but he doesn’t regret this as much as he feels he should.

His head is fuzzy, but he feels light. It’s warm here. Either he imagines it, or Vice actually looks at him when he stands, wobbles, and somehow remains standing.

_‘You should put yourself out there more!’_ No regrets, says the champagne. Yuuri tugs on his collar, and walks towards the stage.

 

* * *

 

The next thing he knows, he’s jerking awake with a gasp perched on the edge of his throat. Getting to full alertness is usually a slow and tedious process for him, but the deluge of realizations -- this is not his ceiling fan, those are not his curtains, and these are definitely not his sheets -- short-circuits that part of his brain that’s still fighting off the fog.

He remembers drinking last night. He also remembers Mari’s horror stories about their father during the staff New Year’s party in 2012. Yuuri groans, and covers his face with his hands. His head is killing him, and aside from the drinking, he can recall absolutely nothing useful from last night. But none of that matters more than the fact that _these aren’t his sheets_.

Stupid, how could he have been so _stupid_?

The next breath catches in his throat; the one after breaks through, but only after a struggle. He feels a familiar burning in the back of his eyes. His heartbeat starts to quicken.

Not good. He has to get out of here.

He throws off the blanket that was draped over him. He’s still wearing his clothes -- _all_ of them, he finds, which chips at the edge of the panic, just a little bit. Squinting at his surroundings takes entirely too much effort than it should, and the too-bright sunlight leaking in from the window doesn’t help, but he eventually spots his glasses sitting on top of an old night table. He practically stumbles into his shoes on his way to get to them. His bag is waiting for him on the floor by the door.

Emboldened by the fact that, aside from his unfamiliar surroundings, everything else seems to be… okay?… Yuuri takes a deep breath, slings his bag over his shoulder, and yanks open the door.

He immediately registers the pleasant aroma of coffee. Sure enough, there’s a pot brewing in the kitchen, or at least the section of the far wall lined in old mismatched appliances and a tiny counter. Aside from the bedroom, it looks like the rest of this place is just one big room, with a couch in the middle serving as some kind of divider. A small TV sitting on a barstool is playing old cartoons, but it’s on mute.

Which makes sense, because when Yuuri spots the figure seated on the couch, facing away from him, he catches a glimpse of him staring at a phone, and the fact that he’s got headphones on. He spends what must be entirely too much time staring at the back of this person’s head, at the silvery hair which confirms that this is, in fact, the pianist from last night.

The upright piano near the window is kind of a big hint, too, but the hair is what seals it for him.

Now that he’s established that, he’s… not entirely sure what to do. He considers saying something, but that involves figuring out what exactly to say and despite his best efforts Yuuri can think of nothing. Nothing. What should he even expect? Did he make a fool of himself at the bar? It doesn’t look like anything happened last night, but if the pianist had to take him here then he clearly wasn’t in any condition to get home himself. But then why didn’t he call a cab instead? Why -- ?

This is stupid. There are at least a dozen questions Yuuri can think of right now that all start with ‘why’. To be a burden on a complete stranger, to seem weak, was the last thing he ever wanted when he stepped into that bar last night, but he can’t do anything about that now. Might as well make a quiet exit, let the man forget Yuuri ever existed, and figure the rest of it out later.

He can see two other doors from here, one half-opened and leading into what looks like a bathroom. The other one, near a whimsical chair that’s also somehow a coat rack, must be the way out. Yuuri keeps his eyes on the back of the man’s head as he slowly makes his way to that door, trying to be as quiet as possible.

‘Trying’ being the operative word when, on his fourth step, his foot sinks over something soft and a loud yelp fills the air.

Once he’s had time to process all of this embarrassment, package it, and throw it far behind him, he’ll remember this encounter and realize how cute the pianist's dog is. “Ah, s-sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean -- !”

“Makkachin?” The pianist yanks his headphones out and whirls around. When he sees Yuuri, his wide eyes soften, and his face relaxes into a smile. “Morning. How are you feeling?”

Makkachin darts away, making a beeline for the bedroom. Yuuri swallows, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. He forgets he’s not in Japan, and bows low. “Thank you for… for taking care of me? I-I’m very sorry if I’ve caused you any trouble.”

“It was no trouble at all.” The pianist shuts his laptop and begins walking over. “Do you want anything? Coffee? Anything?” After a muted shake of Yuuri’s head, the man chuckles softly. It’s such a pleasant sound that Yuuri almost swears it quells the raging headache he’s got, if only for a moment. “Are you sure? Last night -- ”

No, no, no. He doesn’t want to hear about it. “I have to go! S-sorry!”

He’s a lot closer to the exit than the pianist is to him. So after a mad dash to the door, nearly stumbling over his feet, Yuuri finds himself outside -- literally, outside, blinking back spots in his vision after his eyes are flooded with sunlight. A single set of stairs leads down to what looks like a commercial parking lot. His hand skims over the metal railing, and he gets small chips of paint stuck to his palm when he lets go.

He has no idea where he is.

If nothing else, the pianist doesn’t follow him out. He’ll decide if he wants to count this as a good thing later.

It’s a three-minute walk to a bus stop -- or it should have been, if Yuuri didn’t take a winding route to find it, then waste a few more minutes waiting on the wrong side of the road. He recognizes the bus that eventually pulls up, and breathes out a sigh of relief when he pats his jacket pockets: keys, bus pass, phone, everything’s still there. He boards, grateful that he caught this one because apparently, this bus runs every hour.

He tries to check his phone, but it’s dead, because of course it is.

He’s lived in this city long enough to have a vague idea of how this trip is supposed to go: get off at Phoenix Center, wait another 20-odd minutes, then catch another bus that’s coming back around, because this city wasn’t built in a neat, sensible grid at all. But his head is throbbing and the sunlight is only getting brighter with each passing minute, so he gets off a few stops ahead and takes a cab the rest of the way.

Yuuri closes his eyes and leans his head against the glass. _Nothing happened_ , he tells himself. _He took you to his apartment and let you sleep in his bed, but nothing happened._ The words sound fake, even in his head, and he imagines they would taste fake if ever said them out loud.

They’re true, though, and that’s what’s odd.

Maybe it fits him, though, in retrospect. After all the horror stories of kidnappers lurking at bars from those crime dramas Mari would binge-watch back home, and all the times Phichit would sneak into their dorm room at stupid hours in the morning with his belt missing and a huge grin on his face, maybe it’s only right that Yuuri’s version turned out anticlimactic, and entirely uninteresting.

 

* * *

 

Or maybe he spoke too soon. Because two days later, Yuuri is standing in front of the washer, checking the pockets of each of his clothes before tossing them in. And from the left back pocket, one he never uses, of the jeans he wore the night he went to the bar, he finds a single slip of paper.

The light in their dorm's laundry room is awful, and he almost has to squint despite the fact that he’s wearing his glasses. It’s a receipt of some sort, from a drugstore chain -- two different types of painkillers, eyedrops, concealer, and some kind of cough syrup. What? Paid in cash. What?

He racks his brains, trying to remember the last time he bought any of these items, much less all of them together. Did he make a mistake, were these Phichit’s pants?

It makes a lot more sense when he turns the paper over. This time, he definitely has to squint, to make out the tiny, angular handwriting there.

 

> _If you’re reading this now, it means you left without saying goodbye, which Georgi warned me might happen. Let me just say I’m glad you didn’t die of alcohol poisoning from the dozen champagne and gin cocktails you put away. I’d be curious to know your secret sometime, after all, I may or may not have a_ ~~_stereotype_~~ _reputation to defend._
> 
> _Speaking of things we may or may not have done: you may or may not have requested something from me last night. But it was not something I could deliver in one night, nor commit to in your state._ _If you remember what it is, and you decide that you no longer want it when you’re sober, then I thank you for the evening and hope you have a good life. Otherwise... I’m at your disposal._
> 
> _\- Victor_
> 
> _313 - 269 - ..._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You: Did you just write this fic because Victor shares a voice actor with that charming crooner from [_Sakamichi no Apollon?_](http://myanimelist.net/anime/12531/Sakamichi_no_Apollon)  
>  Me: *shifty eyes* Mmmaybe?
> 
> (In case you didn't click on the inline link from the second bar scene, and were curious about it: have some [singing Junichi Suwabe](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o661KZwx2JQ) to grace your day!)


	2. Have You Ever Heard Two Turtle Doves?

  

 

> **Piano Man?**
> 
> Hi, this is two days late but
> 
> I’m really, really sorry for stepping on  
>  your dog’s tail

 

Maybe he could have thought of a better opening message. Of course, Yuuri realizes this a few minutes after he’s already hit ‘Send’. Twice.

Hindsight is telling him a lot of things, as it often does. Two days ago, halfway into their living room and with a very curious roommate practically hovering over him until he’d ‘spill’, Yuuri should have come up with a better excuse than _‘I crashed at the Piano Man’s place’_. More importantly, today, he shouldn’t have allowed himself to get caught sitting on his bed next to a pile of unfolded laundry, staring at the receipt with Victor’s note in his hands. Phichit took one look at the scrawl on the back, let out a high-pitched noise that Yuuri didn’t have the words to describe, and pointed an accusing finger at the paper. “Is that from Piano Man??”

Phichit is largely the reason Yuuri doesn’t save the contact as ‘Victor’ just yet. He thinks of how many hours he can’t fill in from that night, and how there’s still a tiny chance, after everything else, that the Victor who wrote the note and Vice from the bar are two different people.

Yuuri’s phone buzzes in his hand. An image has been sent to him: a close-up of a poodle with soft brown curls and shining brown eyes, wearing a hat that looks like it was folded out of a Chinese takeout menu.

   

> **Piano Man?**
> 
> All is forgiven, is what that look says.
> 
> How are you doing? I was beginning to wonder  
>  if you’d lost my note.
> 
> She’s adorable. What’s her name?
> 
> Makkachin! :)
> 
> Before you ask me if it means anything: it doesn’t.  
>  16-year-old me just thought it sounded nice.
> 
> I came close. Found it on laundry day.
> 
> Thanks again. And sorry.
> 
> I have this feeling like if I remembered anything of  
>  that night, I’d be apologizing more.
> 
> Will you believe me if I say you have absolutely  
>  nothing to apologize for?

 

Yuuri stares at the words for a long time. His thumbs hover uselessly over his screen until it locks.

It’s hard to agree to such a generous offer when the bar for ‘things you probably shouldn’t be caught doing, and if you are, apologize immediately’ have always been rather high up. There’s always his coach and the ISU to worry about, and by extension the media bloodhounds that don’t seem to go into hibernation even though the competitive season is over. Before that, there was his family, his tiny hometown where everyone knew everyone, his country and the companies that miraculously _didn’t_ cancel their sponsorships even after his spectacular self-destruction at Nationals.

Phichit had ‘wisdom’ for him about this two days ago, between needling him for details (pouting when he got none) and laughing at his expense while handing him a cup of the strongest coffee that the third-floor vending machine could make: _‘Blame yourself once, if you have to, then move on’._  It’s not like anything he can do now will undo… whatever it is he did at the bar.

Come to think of it, he supposes the same can be said of his trainwreck of a season. Maybe Phichit meant it that way all along.

  

> **Piano Man?**
> 
> At the end of your note you mentioned that I  
>  asked you for something.
> 
> Ah, you remember what it was?
> 
> No. Sorry.
> 
> I was hoping you’d remind me.
> 
> Do you like coffee?
> 
>  

Yuuri blinks at the screen. What?

  

> **Piano Man?**
> 
> And/or sweet things? There’s this coffee shop  
>  that opened up in Capitol Park a few months ago  
>  that I’ve been meaning to try.

 

A part of him valiantly struggles to make sense of the fact that they seem to be having two different conversations. Another part of him is thinking about coffee, yes, of course, he took 22 units in his last semester of college so of course he’s familiar with coffee -- the sweets are another thing, Celestino would disapprove, but it’s not like he’s skating in any more events this season, so maybe it doesn’t really matter.

The rest of him is still thinking: what?

  

> **Piano Man?**
> 
> Just to be sure I’m understanding this right...
> 
> Is that what I asked? To take you out for coffee?
> 
> No :) Just that I prefer to discuss these things in  
>  person.
> 
> By all means, feel free to interpret this as *me*  
>  asking *you* out for coffee, though.  

 

* * *

 

Capitol Park is an hour-ish away from the dorms, the ‘-ish’ largely depending on how much Yuuri is willing to walk on any given day. Today he takes the route that ends up with the most walking, using the extra time to clear his head. It’s a good day for it, too: the cold wind nips at his face and fingers, but the sun is out. So is what looks like a good chunk of Detroit. He can’t blame them; the day promises spring, not yet but soon, and although he was traveling for half of it he knows this past winter wasn’t the friendliest one.

It’s easier to find the coffee shop than he expects, and by the time he realizes he’s already standing in front of it, he also realizes that he hasn’t gotten much of his intended head-clearing done. Damn it.

The coffee shop has a modern, almost industrial vibe, all sleek lines, white against black against white, and a distressed flag on one wall. Thick steel pipes run along the length of the store, suspended from the high ceiling. This early on a Saturday, the shop is already filled with people and the din of their conversations. The music, while pleasant enough to listen to, comes at him from all sides.

It’s a lot to take in. It feels… different, somehow, like in his off-season routine of skating and school and training and doing it all again, it isn’t a place he’d expect to walk into by himself. Phichit’s little adventures here and there, like looking for jazz bars and escape rooms and ‘ _the restaurant with the spiciest food in Detroit!!’_ don’t count, as Yuuri usually just agrees (or doesn’t) and comes along for the ride.

Saturday morning coffee dates are completely uncharted territory.

“Over here!”

It’s impossible not to spot Victor within seconds of entering. His silvery-blond hair glimmers under the cafe’s muted light, which the smile he’s wearing threatens to put to shame. He’s found a table for them near the bar, and from the looks of the intact latte art in his cup, he hasn’t been waiting very long.

Yuuri waves back, and gestures vaguely towards the bar. It doesn’t take him too long to order, but he still feels a bit awkward about the delay as he takes his seat opposite Victor. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself.”

Yuuri thinks he can count on one hand how many first dates he’s been on, and precisely zero of those occurred in the past two years. He manages through a couple of cycles of small-talk, the ‘how are you’s’ and ‘this place is nice’, but he stops himself short of bringing up the weather, instead blurting out the first thing that comes to mind: “On a scale of one to ten, how much of a factor in you choosing this place was the fact that it had a pun in its name?”

“A solid five.” Victor’s smile is shaped like a heart, Yuuri learns, from the bow of his lips and how far the corners pull up, making him look instantly younger. “I’m glad you came. It’s good to see you…”

Yuuri frowns when he trails off. “What?”

“Nothing. Just… I never actually got your name?”

“O-oh. Of course.” He flushes and stares at his coffee, wondering why that important detail never even occurred to him until now. “Yuuri Katsuki.” He introduces himself as he always does when he’s not in Japan. “I’m terribly sorry, that was rude of me.”

“I said you had nothing to apologize for, no?” Victor leans back in his chair and tests the word out on his tongue: “Yuuri, Yuuri.”

“And you’re Victor, right?” At the cheerful nod that follows -- he really ought to rename the man’s contact on his phone now -- Yuuri presses, “Victor…?”

“Popovich.” Victor takes a slow sip of his coffee, and nods at the plate in front of Yuuri. “How’s the Oreo cheesecake?’

“Worth the inevitable jog around campus that it’ll take for me to burn it off.” Victor laughs at this. It’s a nice laugh, but in admiring the way the mirth crinkles up the one visible eye that’s not hidden by his hair, Yuuri can’t help but notice the slight puffiness underneath, and how the eyelid wavers. “Tired?”

“Hmm?”

“Sorry, nothing. I just…” He toys with his fork, biting back an apology for being rude. That would be the second one in this date alone. “You work nights, right?”

“Ten ‘til closing.” Victor shrugs. “I don’t mind anymore. I used to, I think -- I was a morning person, a long time ago. But one can get used to almost anything, I suppose. No matter how drastic the change.”

“I guess I wasn’t really thinking,” Yuuri murmurs, suddenly feeling awful. “Suggesting a Saturday morning of all things… I’m -- ”

“Don’t worry about me, Yuuri,” Victor comes in before he can say sorry. He props his arms against the table and leans forward with a wide grin. “Let’s talk about you! How long have you lived in this city? You mentioned a ‘campus’ earlier, are you a student here? What do you like to do for fun?”

“S-slow down,” Yuuri can’t help but laugh. “Okay, let’s see… I’ve lived here for three -- actually, almost four years now. I’m not a student anymore, though I was until last month. Um… I like skating a lot?” Which he supposes is enough of an answer for the last two questions.

“Ah yes, you’re a figure skater,” Victor says with a vigorous nod. “You told me as much.”

“I… did?”

“Mm-hmm. You don’t remember.” It’s not a question, but Yuuri shakes his head anyway. “Will you show me?”

“Ehh? What??”

“Your skating.” There’s no hesitation in the way Victor grabs his hands across the table, making Yuuri choke on the mouthful of cheesecake he was in the middle of chewing. When he glances up, though, he thinks he can see a tiny hint of uncertainty on the other man’s face, the way his smile falters, a flicker in his eye. “I’d like to see? But, ah… only if you don’t mind, of course.”

It takes about ten seconds for Victor to ‘find’ a nearby rink on his phone, and less than four minutes for them to walk to it. It’s a breath of fresh air in the middle of downtown, huge and open and close to the river -- and it’s a popular fixture in the city, popular enough that even a relative shut-in like Yuuri is familiar with it.

All of the above has Yuuri squinting suspiciously at Victor as they line up for rental skates. “Did you plan this? This is the real reason you chose that coffee shop, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps. Though as you say, the pun in the name was also a contributing factor.”

Yuuri shakes his head with an incredulous laugh. “Do you know how to skate?”

“I can get by. Enough to hopefully not embarrass myself in front of you.” Victor grins. “Famous last words.”

The line stretches for longer than Yuuri expected, winding several times in front of the rental station. Someone mentions a few places down that tomorrow’s the last day that the rink will be open this year, so maybe that’s why. Yuuri stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets, staring at his feet. He tries to stop the part of him that wants to do the math: if the rink closes after tomorrow, as it does at more or less the same time every year, then how many days are left until Worlds?

“Yuuri.” He’s not sure how long Victor’s been looking at him. “We don’t have to be here, we can do something else.”

“It’s fine.” Yuuri shakes it off and forces a smile. “I’m fine.”

For however long it is, the line at least keeps moving constantly, and at something a bit faster than a glacial pace. It’s been years since Yuuri’s had to wear skates that aren’t his own, and they feel heavy, alien, pinching and pressing in places he’s not used to. He’s entirely too conscious of them on his feet, which seems to be a new sensation in and of itself. Uncharted territory, and all that.

Still, the urge to be on the rink the moment he gets to his feet -- that will never go away.  

“This feels tight,” Victor complains.

“They’re supposed to be tight.” Yuuri glances at the other man’s laces, making sure they look secure, before tugging on his sleeve. “Come on!”

A knot in his stomach slowly unravels the moment his skates hit the ice. It reminds him of running straight to Ice Castle Hasetsu after the last school bell, of jogging around the parking lot of the Costco next to the Skating Club at some ungodly hour while waiting for it to open. Yuuri starts off slow, skating in lazy circles, leading Victor around the rink, letting the other man catch up to him and then darting away. Laughter, pouting, more laughter.

Victor’s not a disaster on the ice -- he’s able to keep up with Yuuri to an extent, and his legs don’t wobble as he glides along, albeit on two feet. Eventually, Yuuri manages to coax him away from the boards and closer to the middle of the rink, where the skaters move faster, but there are less of them. He moves onto simple figures there, nothing too fancy. He watches Victor drag his skates across the ice and comments that he stops like a hockey player.  

“You’re not half-bad at this.”

“‘He says, as he clearly holds back on my account’.” Victor’s breathing hard, but not hard enough to put a damper on the teasing note in his voice. A pink flush has colored his cheeks, and made its way to the tips of his ears. “Don’t you want to show off, even a little bit? Spinning and jumping and what-have-you.”

Yuuri glances around them, frowning. “I might crash into people.”

“You’re a professional, I’m sure you’ll manage.” Victor winks at him before skating back to the edge of the rink.

Yuuri doesn’t follow him, not yet.

The word ‘professional’ conjures up too many images in his already-crowded head, of polite emails from sponsors to Celestino with his own name only under ‘Cc’, press conferences in Tokyo and camera flashes in Sochi. Retirement is coming for him, in a little under a year -- maybe sooner, if he self-destructs early again. Either way, ‘what next?’ looms around the corner, and hasn’t that been the question of the hour for a long time now?

He’s not fully conscious of the decision to _move_ , not really. He just knows that his train of thought has taken him somewhere unpleasant, so he picks a direction and skates. And skates. And skates.

Yuuri glides in the spaces between the other skaters, hearing the cut and scrape of his blades against the ice. He isn’t sure when it happens, but at some point the random selection of moves and turns that he’s been doing on the fly somehow turns into the second half of the step sequence from his latest free program. Arabesque spiral, free leg extended, wind in his ears. A closed mohawk before he can hit the boards. In the back of his mind, he hears the near-frantic notes of the 30th measure of Massenet’s  _[Méditation](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLhvMgucWns)_ from _Thaïs_ \-- a long-time favorite of Celestino’s -- as he eases into a spread-eagle. He finds an opening at the right time, and launches himself into a triple axel.

He uncrosses his legs upon landing, checking the rotation. Success.

Dimly, he registers scattered applause from some onlookers around him. He flushes and offers a brief smile of thanks before tucking his nose under the edge of his scarf. If only he’d landed that jump in Sochi.

If only he’d landed _any_  jump in Sochi.

He skates to a stop in front of Victor, who’s leaning against the boards. He’s got a finger pressed against his lips, and an unreadable smile on his face as he murmurs something in Russian. “What was that?” Yuuri asks.

“Sorry. When you skate, it’s like you’re creating music with your body.” There’s an almost reverent quality to Victor’s voice as he speaks. “Beats and notes in every sweep of your leg, a crescendo before you jump. And your face, the way you move your arms... I can almost hear the mournful notes -- possibly in a minor key, but not necessarily.” He smiles. “It’s entrancing.”

What in the world is he supposed to say to that? Yuuri feels the heat creeping across his face, spreading to his neck and ears. He has no idea what to do with his hands.

Victor does, though, when he claps them once in front of Yuuri’s face, startling him out of his stupor. “Well. I’ve made my decision. I’d be happy to work with you, if you still want it.”

It’s impossible to process any of that when Victor’s face is suddenly inches from his own. “‘It’?”

“What you so sweetly asked of me that night at _Butcher’s Keys_ ,” he murmurs. He reaches out to trace the pad of his thumb against Yuuri’s bottom lip, and Yuuri is so shocked that he just… lets him. “You wanted me to help you find music.”

“Music… to skate to?” Yuuri stammers.

Victor nods. “Music to make you ‘feel alive again’. Those were your exact words.”

He doesn’t remember any of it, no matter how hard he tries. In spite of everything, he supposes there’s a bit of consolation to be had in knowing that his drunken antics at the bar at least included him achieving what he went there for in the first place. He swallows hard, unable to look away from Victor’s eyes -- both of them, this time, because Victor is so _close_ that Yuuri can see the blue peeking out from behind his fringe.

“Buuut that look on your face tells me that you remember none of it.” Victor grins and pulls away. “I told you to let me know if you still want it when you’re sober, didn’t I?” Before Yuuri can answer, he adds, “Also, I can’t simply be going in blind. If we’re going to do this, I’m going to need to know what kind of music you like, if you’ve got any particular mood or genre in mind, what you’re comfortable skating to. And of course, what ‘feeling alive’ means to you.” He throws a careless glance back as he steps off the rink. “So maybe I let you sleep on it. Okay?”

There’s that wink again. And it shouldn't have as much of an effect on him as it did the first time, but somehow it does. “Uh… yeah.” Yuuri nods dumbly. “Sure. Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Victor has lunch plans with the rest of the band and practice with them for the night’s set later that afternoon. So he and Yuuri part ways at the bus station, with Yuuri promising to text him when he comes to a decision, and Victor promising to keep an eye on his phone.

Victor doesn’t touch him again after they leave the rink, but Yuuri’s bottom lip tingles throughout the whole bus ride home.

The rest of Saturday is spent holed up in his dorm room, with the time split roughly between looking up any figure skating routines set to jazz (apparently he’s not the first to think of it, but there haven’t been many) and staring at his screen while thinking about Victor’s finger on his lip, Victor calling everything a ‘date’, Victor telling him his body makes music. Restless, he goes for a run around the block in the middle of the afternoon, to pay off the morning’s cheesecake debt, and tries to make sense of it all.

Victor only wants to help him with his music, is what he eventually concludes. If he was being charming and flirty to Yuuri, perhaps he’s just charming and flirty with everyone he meets. And this is fine, because this makes sense, because Victor looks like a Renaissance sculpture and his music shakes the soul, and Yuuri is… well, Yuuri is Yuuri.

 

* * *

 

 

(Google returns precious few results for ‘Victor Popovich’: just a few social media profiles that are definitely not of the Victor he knows.)

 

* * *

 

 

Sunday’s a rest day, which is good because he sleeps in, and spends pretty much the rest of it binge-watching some British sci-fi series Phichit has had on his to-watch list forever.  

 

* * *

 

 

Come Monday, Celestino is bugging Yuuri about music choices for his programs again. “I know it’s early but can you please have a look at the songs on this list? I’ll come up with more if you veto all of them. And you know, it would be better if you start looking around on your own too...”

Yuuri looks them all up that night, one at a time. He twirls a pencil between his fingers when he’s not taking notes about what he’s listening to as he makes his way through the list:

_Song #1: Frantic. Too much going on - tempo is kind of all over the place?_

_Song #2: Sounds too much like old RPG music. (Would rather skate to old RPG music.)_

_Song #3: Too sad._  
  
On and on it goes, until he’s reached the end of the list and all of the song titles have been crossed out. The margins are filled with scribbles and notes, getting generally snarkier as they go. Yuuri gets up and sits with his legs straddling the back of his chair, facing away from the desk. That becomes uncomfortable after a minute so he switches back, stretching with a yawn. He rubs at his eyes, which only succeeds in getting tiny spots to form in his vision.

Yuuri cradles his head in his arm as he waits for them to go away. There, directly in his line of sight, his phone sits on his desk as though mocking him.

A beat passes. Another.

There’s no champagne to blame tonight.

  

> **Victor**
> 
> So I think I’m going to take you up on your generous  
>  offer
> 
> If it’s still on the table
> 
> :) Of course.
> 
> Any particular catalyst to this decision?
> 
> No single trigger
> 
> If that’s what you’re asking
> 
> I’ve looked through a few options on my own
> 
> But none of them really seems to be the one
> 
> Can’t pick any of them without feeling like you’re  
>  settling?
> 
> Yeah...
> 
> Well that won’t do
> 
> The music you choose should inspire you and lift you  
>  up. If you end up settling for a piece that is lukewarm  
>  to you, you won’t be able to move your audience.
> 
> As performers we live for our audience, no?

 

Yuuri recalls part of the melody of the old piano piece he commissioned ages ago. He glances over to the bed at the other side of the room, where Phichit has his headphones in, mouthing along quietly -- or trying to, as a bit of a whisper escapes when he gets to _‘Shall, We, Skaaaaaate!’_  

 

> **Victor**
> 
> Do you want to talk about payment and stuff now or  
>  later?
> 
> We can worry about that some other time. When  
>  are you free next?
> 
> I’m usually free in the evenings, but I don’t want  
>  to get in the way of your real job.
> 
> How do you feel about Sunday morning? 10-ish?
> 
> Sounds perfect. It’s a date, then ;)
> 
> Here’s my address: ...
> 
>  

* * *

 

Sunday morning at 10:03, Yuuri arrives bearing coffee and pastries from a bakery next to the bus stop where he got off. The address itself points to a pizza chain, which would have been confusing if Victor hadn’t texted him the night before, as if in afterthought: _‘Go around back and up the stairs. You’ll know it when you see it :)’_

He remembers the stairs from the day he panicked and ran out of Victor’s apartment. There’s no doorbell in sight. Balancing the tray of coffee on one arm, he knocks on the door. “Victor?”

There’s no response. He tries again, waits a bit, then tries again.

10:10 now. Did Victor forget about their plans? Yuuri tries not to think too much about it as he brings up Victor’s contact, and calls his number. He didn’t even bother to set up his voicemail, as all Yuuri gets is the automated voice going _‘You have reached the voice mailbox of. Three. One. Three…’_

Yuuri isn’t sure how long he stands there, weighing his options in his head. He considers leaving, and telling Victor he was here but no-one was home. He considers waiting at the top of the stairs -- maybe Victor went out and got breakfast from somewhere else? Or maybe Victor changed his mind completely, in which case Yuuri should walk away and forget this ever happened.

He’s not sure why he tries the doorknob. But he does, and he learns that the door was never locked in the first place.

“Victor?” He squints as he steps into the apartment, reminding himself to apologize for this later. The curtains have been drawn, and the only light in the common area is coming from a single desk lamp near the piano. Yuuri sets the food and coffee down onto the seat of the hybrid chair-coat hanger near the door, and calls out again. “Victor?”

A single bark is all the warning he gets before he’s tackled to the floor by a poodle.

“Hey -- ” He can’t help but laugh as she licks his cheek. “Makkachin, right? Where’s your master?”

Makkachin runs off, letting him push himself back to his feet. All he gets from her are some high-pitched whines as she paws at the door.

As his eyes adjust to the dim light, Yuuri realizes that the more he sees of this place, the more he remembers of it: aside from the bedroom and bathroom, which he can see are both empty, this is all just one big room. So if he can’t _see_ Victor right now, then he must not be here.

Except he finds that there are a couple of blind spots from where he’s standing: one behind a bookshelf, which he can probably assume is empty, and behind the couch… which is exactly where he finds Victor, sprawled face-down on the floor.

“Oh my God -- ” Yuuri’s kneeling beside him in a flash, shaking his shoulder. “Victor, are you okay? Can you hear me? Hey!”

That doesn’t work. Yuuri pushes him onto his back, finds that he’s warm to the touch. Placing a hand on his cheek, he leans down and places his head closer to Victor’s face.

He’s breathing. Yuuri lets out a shuddering breath and starts to calm down because he’s breathing, that’s great, that’s _great_ …

For all that his earlier knocking and yelling didn’t do any good, it seems that the lingering cold from the winter air on his hands does: Victor finally stirs with Yuuri’s hand still on his cheek, and after more of a struggle than it should be, cracks open an eye.

“Victor…” Yuuri places his hands on his shoulders and forces Victor to look at him. “God, you scared me, what happened? Why are you on the floor, are you hurt? Hang on, let me get you a -- ”

“Wait!”

A hand around his wrist, squeezing tight, stops him before he can even start to fully pull away. “Victor?”

“Wait, please don’t leave…”

Yuuri stares at the man on the floor, wide-eyed. There are many things about this scene that he will process later: the reek of alcohol, the evidence in glass on top of the coffee table, just inches away. Right now all he can focus on is the way Victor’s throat jerks, and how the sound he forces through first resembles a sob, before the actual words come out again.

“Please don’t leave me again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you skipped the inline link, here’s J. Massenet’s Méditation from Thaïs performed by Izthak Perlman and the Abbey Road Ensemble: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLhvMgucWns>


	3. Kind of Magic / Music We Make

Yuuri watches Makkachin circle the light post until he loses count, which is when he gives the leash a light tug. “Come on,” he beckons. “Let’s head back.”

She’s so nice to him, so friendly. She bounds across the sidewalk beside him with her tail thumping through the air. At an intersection, while waiting for the light to change, he catches himself smiling fondly at her and remembering another friendly poodle, smaller, with the same brown fur and boundless energy --

No. No. He stops that train of thought right there, shaking his head in case that might help to dislodge it. He doesn’t have time for that right now, especially when he’s got a more urgent problem to deal with: he still hasn’t figured out what he’s going to say when he gets back to the pianist’s apartment.

From the moment he’d grabbed Yuuri by the wrist and said those words that Yuuri wasn’t sure were for him, it took Victor about ten more seconds to really wake up. And when he did, he dropped his arm liked he’d been burnt, scooting away and very nearly banging his head against the side of the coffee table. Back pressed to the side of the couch, face buried in his hands -- Victor couldn’t form a sentence if his very life depended on it. “I’m sorry, this isn’t -- I forgot, I shouldn’t have -- I’m so sorry Yuuri, this is so rude of me -- ”

Yuuri didn’t know what to say.

He could have said any number of things. He could have asked what was wrong. He could have asked how he could help. He could have offered even some semblance of comfort. Somehow all of those options escaped him, and he’d kick himself about that later, but in the heat of the moment his mind blanked out and instead he found himself saying, “I can walk your dog.”

“W-What?”

Too late to take it back. “Makkachin, right? She looks like she really wants to go out, um… I can take her out? For a walk? If you’re okay with it.”

It’s remarkable, he realizes now, how easily Victor already trusts him. He must, since Yuuri remembers only gratitude in Victor’s eyes when he handed him the leash. They go around the block, because Yuuri has no better ideas. When he finds that it’s composed entirely of chain restaurants, drugstores, and dollar stores, that raises even more questions than it answers, but he pretends that it doesn’t.

It’s hard to focus on anything else when he’s mostly still trying to make sense of what he saw, and what Victor said.

“‘Please don’t leave me again’,” he repeats to the empty, biting cold air. The words send trails of white up to the sky. He looks down at Makkachin. “Any idea what he meant by that?”

She stares up at him. Her tongue hangs out with her jaw split in the way that makes all dogs look like they’re smiling. Her tail hasn’t stopped wagging since their walk started though, so she might as well be.

“Didn’t think so.” He rubs at her ears until the light turns green.

Is it even any of his business, really? He’s known Victor for -- what -- a little over a week? He’s not counting their aborted encounters at the bar, because in the first one Yuuri had been drunk and run away, and in the second one, Yuuri had been drunk and forgotten all of it. He supposes it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put it all together; there really aren’t that many other possibilities to tie together Victor’s miserable state on the floor and the half-empty vodka bottles on his coffee table. Something about both Victor’s and Makkachin’s reactions to his arrival tells him this isn’t the first time something like that happened, but Yuuri isn’t sure where he’s supposed to stand. If he found Phichit in that state, it would be a different story. He tries to think of what _he’d_ want, if he and Victor switched places. The answer’s like a knee jerk -- he’d want Victor far, far away.

But come to think of it… this kind of already happened, didn’t it? And Victor looked after him, took him to his home, made sure he was safe.

The pale pink wash of the pizza restaurant’s walls welcome him as he finishes that train of thought, and he curses to himself because he’s gotten nowhere. On one hand: sure, all of that, okay. On the other hand, he and Victor aren’t the same people -- Yuuri can’t imagine himself taking a drunk stranger home and leaving a note in their jeans pocket.

Maybe that’s it, then. Victor seems to have no problem expressing and acting out on what he wants, so why should this be any different? Yuuri decides he’ll wait to see what Victor wants him to be, after what happened this morning -- just a client, a confidante, a friend? And he’ll go from there.

(He squashes down the thought of Victor wanting ‘something else’, sparked by memories of a thumb against his lips, and of alarmingly close blue eyes, because -- _ridiculous_.)

Yuuri finds himself feeling a bit better about his return to the apartment, now that he’s sure he has a plan. He’s… less sure of why he takes a detour through the pizza restaurant instead of heading up the stairs at the back right away. In any case, when he finally does make it back up, he opens the door to announce “I brought pizza” at the same time Victor says, “I made eggs.”

They stare at each other for a few seconds that feel longer than they should. Victor’s changed into a new set of clothes, and the tips of his fringe hang damp over the side of his face. He also smells a lot more like soap than liquor, and Yuuri is sure that if he turns his gaze just a few inches, to peer into the living area, he’ll see that the bottles are gone.

Instead, he looks at the pan on the stove, where Victor has indeed scrambled some eggs. He glances at the bowl and whisk in the sink, then down at the box of pizza in his hand, before meeting Victor’s eyes again.

They laugh at the same time.

“Come on in.” Victor shuts off the stove and lets the eggs cook in the residual heat. Pulling off his apron, he crouches down to greet Makkachin, who is all too eager to cover him in dog kisses.  “I trust you didn’t give our new friend any trouble, did you Makkachin?”

Yuuri smiles and sets the pizza down onto the table, where Victor already left some plates and mugs waiting. “No, she was great.”

“She _is_ fond of people. She’d make a terrible guard dog, but I love her for it.” An open fondness colors Victor’s face when he glances up at Yuuri again. “Thanks again for taking her.”

“It was my pleasure.”

It gets easier after that. Victor warms up the coffees Yuuri brought earlier -- which Yuuri forgot he even did, whoops -- and sticks the pastries in the toaster oven while they eat the rest. They talk about Makkachin, and Detroit’s public transit system, and how the hardest thing about living in a studio in the back of a building that’s owned by a pizza chain is resisting the temptation to have pizza for dinner every night. Victor spoons eggs onto his pizza and eats it like that, swearing it’s _‘vkusno_ ’. Yuuri finds this horrifying, but also hilarious.

As Victor clears the plates, he directs Yuuri to the living area, where he’s got his laptop open and a portable keyboard waiting, ready to work. As he suspected, none of the bottles are in sight.

Victor clearly doesn’t want to talk about whatever happened this morning, and Yuuri decides he’s more than okay with this. He’ll respect that.

 

* * *

 

“I’ve had requests for music recommendations before, but none so vague as ‘music that will make me feel alive’.” Victor turns on his keyboard and loads up Youtube on his laptop by typing ‘youtube’ into the search bar. All of his recommendations are either jazz performances or dog videos. “Have you got any other parameters for me, or shall I go ahead and send you a sample of this great flamenco song I discovered last week?”

Two years ago, Phichit signed himself and Yuuri up for a Spanish dance class to fill up one of their mandatory P.E. credits. The class itself was fun -- waking up at 5 am on a Saturday for it, not so much. Yuuri has no idea why he’s fixating on this memory. “Sorry for being so vague,” he says with a sheepish grin. “Ah, it at least has to be music I can skate to, if that helps.”

“I can imagine you skating to that [flamenco song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn77IReyPGU) just fine.”

Yuuri laughs. “Do you know a lot about figure skating?”

“Not a lot, but it’s a big sport back home. Hard not to know a little bit.” Victor taps his finger against his lips, letting out a thoughtful hum. “Lots of classical music, from what I recall. You would need two songs, yes?”

Yuuri nods. He decides not to correct him because that would require talking about exhibition programs. If his latest performance at last year’s Nationals is a portent for next season, he might not even end up getting the chance to skate one. “Yeah.”

“What were your most recent selections?”

“Wagner’s _[Tannhäuser Overture](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTM7E4-DN0o)_  and Massenet’s _Méditation._ ”

“Wow.” Victor doesn’t say the word so much as breathe it. “Both lovely pieces of music. Did you like them?” At Yuuri’s noncommittal shrug, he frowns. “Why did you force yourself to skate to music you don’t like?”

“Oh, it’s not that, I like them just fine.” Technically, they were Celestino’s selections -- Yuuri just didn’t say ‘no’ at the time. Still, it’s not as if he found them objectionable or anything. “I guess I just feel like I didn’t do them justice, in the end.”

“Hmmm.” There’s a pause, and then he feels eyes on him. “Something you want to talk about?”

Yuuri looks up. Victor’s regarding him with an expression that is undeniably soft, with a sedate smile and a tentative warmth in his gaze.

He hates that look. He hates it when people want to handle him with kid gloves. “Do I really have to?”

“Not at all.” Just like that, the look is gone, replaced by a wider smile and a gleam in Victor’s eyes. “So, is there anything in particular that you want to explore in this year’s programs? A theme, perhaps?”

That… was easy. Why was that so easy?

The realization comes quickly, but it’s still potent when it hits. Some time between slicing the pizza and sitting down in front of Victor’s laptop, an understanding must have formed between them, though without Yuuri recognizing it until now. Just as Yuuri’s made the choice to respect whatever lines Victor draws in the sand, Victor will go as far as he can, testing the borders, but going no further than what Yuuri will allow.

He decides he likes that sort of arrangement more than he expected to. “I guess I’ve been wanting something different. Different from what I usually do, anyway.” Yuuri finds himself rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’ve been thinking about skating to… to your music. The music that you play.”

Surprisingly, he gets a blank look at first. Victor’s brows furrow together for a moment, before understanding dawns. “Oh, you mean at the bar -- with Georgi and -- you want to skate to jazz?”

Yuuri nods. “I was thinking, for the Short Program… the judges are usually more forgiving of risks there, than they are for the Free Skate. I want to try.”

“Wonderful! That’s a good place to start.” Victor happily launches into his hunt for music, queueing up songs in new tabs until Yuuri can’t read anything in the header of his browser window. “Now, let’s see… there are a lot of places you can go with jazz. Is there a mood you want to set, any feelings you want to stir within your audience? I’ve seen you skate, you’re able to evoke so much emotion with the way you move. If we can find you a song that maximizes that…”

Yuuri watches him fondly as he works, playing through his initial selection one after another. The space of his apartment is soon filled with the rich sound of trumpets and saxophones, of piano keys fluttering, jerking. Makkachin barks in time to some tunes, and Victor either shakes his head while muttering something in Russian (those are the tabs that get closed) or pursing his lips with a thoughtful tilt of his head (and those get paused, but stay open).

“I’d suggest a jazz standard. Since you’re already taking something of a risk with the genre itself, you can at least draw on your audience being familiar with the melody. Absolutely no _[Take Five](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmDDOFXSgAs)_ or _[Sing Sing Sing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2S1I_ien6A)_  though, lots of skaters have already used those two.”

“Would that really be so bad?” Phichit just got the green-light from Celestino to use _‘Shall We Skate’_ , and if Yuuri recalls correctly, it’s been done a handful of times before.

“Hmmm, well, I wouldn’t call it _bad_ necessarily. Just not very… oh, wait.” Victor brightens, and snaps his fingers. “I’ve got it! We’ll find you a song that no-one’s ever used in skating before, and then we’ll mould it into something you can skate your heart out to!”

“Ehh?” Yuuri gapes at him. “Uhh, that sounds kind of needlessly complicated. And risky.”

“Right. No-one will _ever_ see it coming.”

“And… th-this is a good thing?”

“Of course!” Victor flashes him a megawatt smile, waving his finger in the air to make a point. “You always have to do the last thing your audience expects of you. How else are you going to surprise them?” He clicks through several of the tabs he’d left open, lets out a triumphant little _‘ah’_ when he settles on one, and plays the video. “That’s my motto, anyway. Here, have a look at [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2iEulpX910).”

It opens with a few low notes that have the dancer in Yuuri counting out the beats by four, itching to tap his foot in time. The trumpet arrives after the second measure, loud and unapologetic, every new blare of it sending a rush through his veins. Then, a voice like sandpaper: _“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing,”_ it declares. Another trumpet interlude sends the urge to _dance_ up from his ankles, settling restlessly in his hips.

“Well? What do you think?”

“It’s catchy.” The screen shows a still image of what looks like an album cover of two men laughing, with one of them holding a trumpet. That’s when he notices the length of the video. “But, um… we’d probably need to cut down some of it to fit the time limit… maybe the intro?” Too bad for this trumpet solo that’s happening right now. “Though, to be honest I’ve never skated to a track with lyrics before.”

“You don’t have to skate to _this_ song exactly.” Victor laughs. “There are plenty of versions out there, you just need to know where to look. Or...” He grabs his keyboard, placing it over his lap. “...I can give you your own.”

He launches straight into it, and wow -- it sounds like a completely different [song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRGlQ36ykXc). Victor chooses a much faster tempo, and what should be the trumpet’s melody turns into playful little sequences on the high keys, cheerful, but no less alluring.

This version is easier to dance to, Yuuri realizes. Victor strays from the song after only the first verse to weave in a solo that travels the whole length of the piano. Yuuri watches his fingers fly over the keys with his mouth slightly ajar.

He feels something physically snap when Victor stops abruptly in the middle of it all, and turns to face him.

“Something like that.” The pianist laces his fingers together and stretches his arms out in front of him. “Well? What do you think?”

“Wow. Um. It was…” Yuuri tries desperately to come up with a suitable adjective. Come on, come on... “It was very ‘Swing’!” Damn it.

“I know, right?” Victor looks entirely too pleased with himself. “But you shouldn’t commit to one piece right away, anyway. It’s an option for now. Here, I have another song in mind…”

He loads another video, which shows another still image of a different man with a trumpet. Yuuri’s starting to suspect there might be a pattern to this when he’s hit with notes from the piano, opening strong -- both from the laptop, and the keyboard as Victor plays along, in perfect sync.

This should have been enough. But Victor claims to live for surprises, so of course -- of course, he starts to [sing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY_35hBLJYQ):

“ _I took one look at you_  
_That's all I meant to do_ _  
And then my heart stood still…_ ”

Victor almost, just _almost_ , completely loses his accent when he sings, and it’s fascinating. There’s a lightness to his voice, like he’s not even trying to project it to the rest of the room. It was like this back at the bar, too, he remembers: Victor sings like he’s telling you a secret from the depths of his heart, and you can’t help but listen anyway.

 _“My feet could step and walk_  
_My lips could move and talk_ _  
And yet my heart stood still…_ ”

Yuuri can’t help himself. “You’re really good at that.” His brain freezes up, but his mouth keeps going. “Singing, I mean. Not piano. Well, I mean _yes_ piano, of course, just, that was a no-brainer. Gah.” Oh God this is so embarrassing, what the hell? “I… like it when you sing,” he finishes weakly.

“You do?” Victor lifts his hands from the keyboard, but he leaves the video running.

Yuuri nods. “Why don’t you do it more? During your sets, I mean.”

“Well, that’s more of Georgi’s domain, really. He was trained in it. I don’t have nearly the range he does. Nor his lung power,” Victor adds with a laugh.

“I remember you were singing a lot during that one night, though,” Yuuri murmurs. It’s one of the few things he remembers of that night. “Was that a special occasion then? The night I…” Ugh, what’s a good word to use? “...Approached you?”

“Funny you should word it like that. You did a fair bit more than ‘approach’ me.”

Nope, wrong choice. “Oh _God_.” Yuuri buries his face in his hands.

“Nothing scandalous, I promise you. It was all very charming.” Victor’s smile is fixed on his face, threatening to make it all the way to his ears. His eyes are laughing as he looks at Yuuri, but in a way that strangely doesn’t make Yuuri want to either run or bare his teeth.

Victor’s not making fun of him, he realizes. His thoughts flash back to the first night at the bar ( _‘talented fingers’_ \-- he sighs) and he begins to entertain the possibility that Victor might have never been making fun of him at all.

“I can’t thank you enough. For agreeing to help me.” He weighs his next words and takes a deep breath. “I don’t know if I mentioned it, but this is going to be my last competitive season. After this, I’m retiring from the sport.”

Victor doesn’t ask why. Nor does he bring out the dreaded ‘what next?’ which always seems to follow whenever Yuuri says what he just said. “So you want to go out with a bang, yes?”

Yuuri barks out a sad laugh. “More like ‘not completely flame out and embarrass myself’, if I’m being honest.”

“Are you? Being completely honest? Because I think you might be selling yourself short.”

The denial is already sitting on the tip of his tongue. He’s fended off enough well-meaning platitudes from friends and family alike, enough in this past year to last him a lifetime, so he’s had a lot of practice. Besides, what would Victor even know, anyway?

…Wait.  “Did you Google me??” ‘ _Hypocrite, hypocrite_ ,’ dances in his head, circling an image of search results for ‘Victor Popovich’ in his browser.

“I didn’t have to.” Later, Yuuri will think back on this conversation, as he tends to do, and realize that that wasn’t an answer. “I could see it from the way you skated. You have the skills it takes to win, no? Something is holding you back. What could it be?”

What a question. There’s an obvious answer, one that involves an ill-timed phone call the night before his free skate, and Mari-neechan’s voice wavering at the start of it, like she realized the call might have been a mistake. Now that the grief and the shock have had a bit more time to settle, though, Yuuri wonders if it’s been more of a crutch than an actual excuse. He’s been on the podium before, here and there, but he’s never won gold outside of Japan. Has he wanted to? Stupid question, _everyone_ wants to, he’s just never really let himself hope for it. Is that the coping mechanism he always thought it was, or could it actually be the problem? “I guess it’s because… I lack confidence.”

If he expected any response to that, it’s not this: Victor staring at him thoughtfully, a small smile frozen on his face with his finger resting on his lips. Yuuri has come to associate this look with the gears turning in Victor’s head, and wonders if Victor’s had any similar epiphanies about his own mannerisms.

“What?” he finally says.

“Nothing. I was just wondering if there’s anything in the rules about taking a pull of champagne before you skate.” The thoughtful smile cracks into something more mischievous. “Since you were _all_ confidence when you -- ”

“Victor,” he groans.

“Okay, okay, I’m done.” Victor turns off his keyboard and sets it aside with a placating grin. He jumps to his feet and tugs on Yuuri’s sleeve. “Come here, I want to show you something.”

 

* * *

  

There’s a lot of _stuff_ in Victor’s apartment.

He’s not sure if he was too hungover or too busy panicking to appreciate it the first time, but he definitely notices it now. The pianist's shelves are absolutely stuffed with books, and an even mix of Cyrillic and Roman lettering graces the spines. A basket of dog toys is tucked under an old end-table housing various knickknacks: tiny models of the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower, Big Ben; a set of Russian nesting dolls with the paint starting to chip off of the smallest one; a pair of twin candle holders collecting dust. Another wooden bar stool, identical to the one holding the TV, serves as a stand for what look like a modem and a router and a couple of other small gadgets, their wires all hopelessly tangled together.

So he forgives himself for not noticing the record player sitting on top of a small end table, next to a wastebasket of all things. It’s been made to look like a smaller version of a retro stereo system, with reddish wood for the body and elaborately carved holes in front of the speakers, detailed gold-brushed brass on the front. It would have fooled Yuuri at a first glance, had the second not revealed a USB port. And a headphone jack. And a horizontal slot that he’s 99% sure could fit a modern CD.  

Victor lifts up the top of it to reveal an actual turntable inside. He leafs through some records stuffed into a plastic office divider on the floor, before finding what he’s looking for. “It didn’t exactly sound like this, we used a different arrangement, and nobody was singing,” he explains as he slides the record inside. Carefully, carefully, he lifts the arm and brings it over, and the disc begins to spin when he places the needle down just so. “But this was what was playing when you walked over.”

There are a few seconds of silence, and a couple of faint clicks, before the music begins.

It’s a chorus of voices at first, a heavenly ‘ _ahh_ ’. Then the sweet, sweet answer of what Yuuri thinks is a saxophone, soaring high before coming down, inch by inch, down to earth.

 _“Ohhh_  
_Lullaby of Birdland, that’s what I_ _  
Always hear when you sigh..._ ”

Yuuri closes his eyes. He can remember the melody, he thinks: the same cascade of notes, coming up, dipping low, never ever going where you’d expect them to go. Always a half-step here, a plunge there.

Veering left, pulling back right, jittery, but bold steps towards the small space holding the extra chairs beside the stage. Did he climb up on that stage right away, reckless, like this song does in the third line of the first verse? He knows that he must have eventually, because the playful way the singer asks about turtledoves, the way they _‘bill and coo when they love’_ reminds him of his own slurred voice, beseeching, an octave lower than normal. _‘Play me something, Piano Man.’_

He should be more humiliated, he thinks, from what he’s starting to remember.

He’s not.

The music might be messing with his head, because he’s not. All he wants to do, all he’s stopping himself from doing, is find a spot in this apartment that isn’t cluttered with books or dog toys or trinkets and dance. And then maybe pull Victor into it, because the music, slow and sweet but charged in a way he can't explain, with a _something_ he can't describe, is above all things forgiving. _Lullaby of Birdland_ doesn’t care if you can’t dance. When your eyes are closed, you can pretend no-one’s watching.

“I like it,” Yuuri finally breathes. “I do.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Not necessarily this version, but… yeah.”

“Of course.” Victor chuckles. “This is one of the most famous versions of this song. If I were a betting man, I’d say for every ten people in your audience who’ve heard the song, nine would remember this one.”

“So, not so much of a surprise?”

“Not yet.” Victor lifts up the arm to stop the record. “The surprise will come from this.”

They’re closer to the piano from here -- the actual, unmovable upright piano that sits like it’s the focal point of the entire room. The sound made by the legs of the bench dragging along the floor stirs up something Pavlovian in Makkachin, who answers with a happy bark before scrambling over. She’s on the floor next to the piano before Victor even gets to sit down, her tail thumping against the side of it.

“Alright, let’s see.” Victor rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. “I think it goes like this?”

It’s categorically unfair that some people are so talented, is what Yuuri thinks when he starts to play. Victor finds the notes he wants right out of the gate, his right hand teasing at the higher keys while he plays chords on the down beats with his left, which sound tentative only until they’re not. The piano sounds richer, of course, than the keyboard did, and it helps that Victor looks at home here, completely in his element. He changes the tempo too, to something more lively, because of course he does.

When the actual melody comes in he starts humming along, and he keeps doing so until the end; while his voice falters a bit during the trickier parts with all the accidentals, his fingers never do.

“How was that?”

“Much better.” So much that he’s actually sorry that it’s over. “Maybe we can find something that sounds a bit more like that? I can help look, if you point me in the right direction.”

“Or,” Victor turns on the bench with a gleam in his eye, “I could arrange it for you. If the rest of the band agrees, we can perform it too.”

Of all the things that Victor has said and done, Yuuri isn’t sure why this is the one that warms his cheeks the most. “You’d do that for me?”

“I’d be happy to.” And before Yuuri can ask the obvious question, Victor answers: “I told you when I saw you skate that it was almost as though I could hear the music, even though there was none. I can only imagine what kind of magic you and I can make together.” He plays a few chords that Yuuri doesn’t recognize or understand, before laughing and pulling the lid over the keys. “Just give me some time to come up with an arrangement.”

Yuuri watches Makkachin go off to do something else now that the music's over, before realizing there was an unspoken question there.

There are so many things he has to worry about: Celestino, the logistics of it all, and the money, and the time… but he figures he already gave his answer, hours in advance, when he walked through Victor’s door. “I’ll make it worth your trouble, I promise.” The heat in his veins feels a lot less like embarrassment now, and a lot more like purpose. “I’m going to meet you halfway... and I’m going to give it all the ‘Swing’ I have in me!”

“Good! That’s what I like to hear.” Victor is a saint to ignore the ridiculousness of that last part of Yuuri’s declaration, because all he does is shoot him a wink -- which, damn him, still _works_ after all this time. “Because I won’t go easy on you.”

 

* * *

 

‘Some time to come up with an arrangement’ turns out to be a week and a half. Victor schedules the recording on a Sunday afternoon, and invites Yuuri to lunch with him and the rest of the band before they all head to the recording studio together.

By the time Yuuri gets to the shawarma and burger place Victor picked out, there are two people sitting in the booth opposite the pianist. “Georgi will join us later at the studio,” he announces with a cheerful wave. The table is already covered in little platters of eggplant dip, fried cheese, chicken bites, and hummus. “Hungry?”

Babs Milady’s real name is Mila Babicheva, he learns while making his way through the house salad. She teaches group classes at a nearby fitness center and is working on her personal trainer certification; she plays bass in her spare time. Leo de la Iglesia is nearing the end of his second year at Wayne State for his Bachelor of Music in jazz studies. He deliberately chose his nickname as a tribute to ‘Mad Lionel’ Hampton, he says, and when Yuuri admits that he doesn’t know who that is, Leo insists that he look him up, which starts a lively debate on who the ‘best’ jazz percussionist is of all time.

The studio’s a ten-minute walk from the restaurant, and Yuuri observes that they all seem genuinely enthusiastic about this afternoon’s little session. When he asks about payment, Victor laughs at him and tells him not to worry about it. “We’ll bill you when you win something,” he says, like that’s the most reasonable thing in the world. But the Mila and Leo only nod and smile their assent, so maybe it’s possible that Yuuri is the crazy one in this universe.

He meets Georgi at the studio, while the other three begin testing out the instruments for themselves. Georgi has a solid handshake and a warm smile, which persists when Yuuri asks why he hasn’t got his trumpet on him. “Not for this piece,” he explains. “Vitya arranged it for a trio -- piano, bass, and drums only.”

This is the first Yuuri’s hearing of this. “You’re okay with that?”

“But of course,” Georgi chuckles. “I agree with him that this is for the best. And it’s hardly the first time we have a song with one or more of us sitting out the performance. I’m here for support.”

Leo bangs out a lively, spontaneous little solo. Mila joins in, and Victor lets them have the spotlight for a few minutes before attacking the piano with a huge grin.

He looks so happy here, Yuuri thinks. Seeing Victor like this, he starts to wonder if the sad, tired man he stumbled upon that one Sunday morning was just a figment of his imagination.

“Vitya,” he whispers, testing out the name. He glances at Georgi, who’s fixing him with a questioning look. “I don’t know a lot about Russian nicknames,” he admits. “Is that what you call Victor because he’s family?”

The questioning look does not go away. “Family?”

“Um.” Yuuri averts his eyes, embarrassed. “Your last name is Popovich too, right? I, ah, looked up what I could of the band last night. Just so I could know a bit more about you before meeting you? Hope you don’t mind.”

He’s not sure why Georgi’s staring at him like that, like he’s utterly confused. It doesn’t last very long, but Yuuri doesn’t know what to make of the expression it eventually melts into: his eyes soften, and a smile pulls on his lips, but there’s something there that he can’t read.

“I’m afraid it’s just a complete coincidence,” Georgi finally says, “that Victor and I have the same last name. Though I do count him as a dear friend, dear enough to be considered family in a way, we're not related to one another.”

“Oh.” Yuuri flushes. “I see. Sorry for assuming.”

The short jam session goes on until Mila is satisfied with her instrument’s tuning, and they all start setting up their respective copies of sheet music. Once everyone settles down, Victor gives the go-signal. Georgi ushers Yuuri to the other side of the glass.

The song starts with the piano -- lovely notes that resemble trickling rain. Victor plays a few chords as an introduction, but after a few seconds his left hand stills, and he glances up.

Meeting Yuuri’s eyes through the glass, he finishes the rest of the intro with his head cocked, half-lidded eyes, and a smirk that seems to be promising something.

Then the actual song starts, and Yuuri realizes -- with all its playful little ad libs, a short duel between bass and drums in the middle, the _entire second verse_ reconstructed into something else, and the tempo more frantic and excited than anything he remembers -- what that ‘something’ might be.

Victor said he wouldn’t go easy on him.

He wasn’t kidding.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri throws himself body and soul into the song the moment he gets the final audio file in his possession. He makes a playlist with just a single entry, _lullab.mp3_ , on loop, and listens to it almost every minute he can squeeze in throughout the day. It plays in his earbuds on the bus, while doing the dishes, while waiting for laundry to finish. It drowns out the sound of passing cars while Yuuri jogs in the frigid Detroit morning air.

The choreography doesn’t start on the ice, but in a dance studio on the third floor of the arts building at 8 am on a Sunday. He hates every second of his alarm and Phichit has to yell at him to stop snoozing or he’ll chuck Yuuri’s phone into the fridge, but he has no choice. If he wants to bother Minako-sensei, 14 hours away, she’s definitely not going to give him any advice if _she’s_ the one who’s sleep-deprived.

“So what’s the story?” she asks him over Facetime and a bottle of beer.

“No story,” Yuuri says to his laptop webcam. “I had a friend recommend it to me, and they performed it with their band.”

Yuuri shifts his weight from one foot to another as Minako-sensei’s brows draw together. “ _Yuuri…_ ”

“Okay, um. A man walks into a bar, has a few drinks of champagne, then walks over to the pianist on stage. He says, ‘ _Play me something that will make me feel alive again_ ’.”

He says the last part in English. Minako-sensei’s lips twitch, before she bursts into loud, head-thrown-back, slap-the-tabletop-with-her-palm laughter. “I’ll help you,” she finally says, “but one of these days I _will_ get the real story, okay?”

Fleshing out the choreography takes effort. It feels like uncharted territory all over again, trying to blend the slow, graceful lines he’s used to with the music that demands something far more abrupt, sharp. Minako-sensei is able to help him with the backbone of it, and thankfully Celestino’s go-to choreographer has drafted at least one jazz program to completion in her ten years of experience. Yuuri stammers out bits and pieces of what he wants to convey, struggles to put into words the abstract thoughts dancing in his head, and when both English and Japanese fail him he _moves_ instead.

From this, and from his own stubborn determination, a step sequence is born.

This is how the rest of March goes: jumps and the basics on the rink, choreography in the dance studio. Sometimes Minako-sensei’s face on a screen joins him, sometimes not. As always during these early weeks of getting choreography for their programs right, sometimes Phichit comes along and films him, and Yuuri returns the favor. Later, at night, they go over the footage together in their dorm room, trading tips while Phichit snacks on things Celestino wouldn’t approve of.

Yuuri never shows any of the footage to Victor. Not that he has much opportunity to -- with his newly-hectic schedule and Victor’s shifts at the bar, sometimes all they can do is meet up for late-night dinners on Victor’s nights off, or chat over text with long breaks in between during the day. A few times, Yuuri spends a couple of hours at _Butcher’s Keys,_ but staying until closing means getting half an hour of sleep, tops, so he doesn’t.

Sundays are kinder to both of them, and in the few that pass until March ends, Yuuri learns a few more things about Victor Popovich. Among them: he likes his coffee black, he’ll eat almost anything once, and he absolutely cannot handle jump-scares in horror movies.

It’s… hard to put a label on what he and Victor are to each other. Whenever Phichit prods at him to try, Yuuri comes up with a blank. It’s not like he particularly wants Victor to be anything but _Victor_ , and Victor himself doesn’t bring it up either. They enjoy each other’s company, Victor makes him laugh, and he must find something in Yuuri’s presence enjoyable -- otherwise, he wouldn’t keep asking for it. If nothing else, they like each other enough to make it a point to talk every day, somehow. That much, Yuuri knows.

Victor’s on his mind the very first time he’s on the ice with the Sticky Splinters’ _Lullaby of Birdland_ about to play. It’s less than an hour to midnight, and Yuuri’s feet are already aching from the evening’s jumping practice. But he thinks of Victor in the seconds of silence before the very first note, the way he’d sit and play at the piano -- the way he did it at that recording studio is still so clear in Yuuri’s mind.

The way it’s planned, the program’s introduction starts with a playful stretch of his arm, a low sweep of his leg, tracing a full circle, before skating away to start building up speed, a change of foot and sway of hips to mark those two low notes before the melody proper.

But he’s thinking of Victor, and the second half of the intro evolves into something else: the toe-pick of the skate of his free leg jamming into the ice, stopping him completely. A roll that starts with his shoulders and travels south, the hip-sway pronounced tenfold now that he’s not in motion when it happens. At the end of it, he turns his head and cocks it back with a smirk, locking eyes with an imaginary Victor standing at rinkside.

When he finishes, there’s still half of the song left to go. Which makes sense, since he hasn’t even begun considering jumps and spins at this point. But there’s electricity in his limbs and a fluttering warmth in his chest, and all he’s thinking is ‘ _Yes. Yes._ ’

 

* * *

 

“So, uh, don’t freak out or anything.”

Phichit should really know better than to open any conversation with that. “Oh God, what.”

The younger skater gets that look on his face as he stares at his phone, like he’s not sure if he should send it or not. “Somebody may or may not have filmed you doing your thing during practice last night.”

Yuuri squints. He was so absorbed in skating that he can’t even remember if there were any other people there on the rink with him. “Was it you?” he asks in deadpan.

“Of course not! I mean, if it was me, I wouldn’t _tell_ you.”

“Send me the link.”

“No, I changed my mind!”

Phichit is weak, though, and all it takes is a couple more half-hearted accusations and ‘ _I don’t believe you, send me the link, I know your Youtube username_ ’, before he caves.

It’s not the first time Yuuri’s been the subject of candid videos like these. As long as it hasn’t gone viral or anything terrible like that, he can handle it. He finds that this one was shot in portrait mode with a slightly shaky hand, which immediately rules out Phichit. It takes a few seconds for the music to start, muffled and distorted, but by the time it does he’s already scrolled down anyway.  

 

 

> [[video]]
> 
> **DSC - Yuri Katsuki April ‘16**  
>  mysnowswan
> 
> 11,462 views
> 
> **Published on 2 Apr 2016**  
>  Yuri Katsuki skating to ???? Sounds jazzy!
> 
> COMMENTS • 57
> 
> Top comments ▼
> 
> **F KM T P** 8 hours ago  
>  For everyone asking, the song is ‘Lullaby of Birdland’. Definitely a ‘jazzy’ song.  
>  Interesting arrangement, and even more interesting choreo so far. Would be exciting to see the full thing for sure.  
>  View all 22 replies  
>  **mysnowswan** 8 hours ago  
>          Yayyy! Thank you!  
>  **Jaynee J** 7 hours ago  
>          @F KM T P the hero we need
> 
> **Sk8lvrmi** 10 hours ago  
>  So can we take this as confirmation that Yuuri Katsuki ISN”T retiring????  
>  View all 14 replies  
>  **Byron Ried** 9 hours ago  
>          I mean if you’re gonna make a comeback… this is how you do it  
>          **QStar8085432** 8 hours ago  
>          he’s SO DIFFERENT from last year’s Yuri!!! GP can’t come soon enough
> 
> **Francis Andrada** 4 hours ago  
>  Ok. so I might be going insane but… am I the only one who thinks the piano kind of sounds like Nikiforov? Listen to the high notes right when the music starts (0:09), then again at around the vicinity of 1:20. It sounds like that signature ‘thing’ (idk what its called sorry) he always threw in the middle of his performances (knowing him it was probably to piss the judges off, but still)  
>  Anyone? Or is it just me..  
>          **mysnowswan** 2 hours ago  
>          Um… who’s that? ^^;;  
>          **Meathoven** 1 hour ago  
>          1st of all. Viktor Nikiforov was never a jazz pianist  
>          2nd of all. Honestly thought he was dead. Surprised to see his name on here at all
> 
> **Bulletproof Heart** 6 hours ago  
>  Can anyone confirm if this is for one of his programs for the coming season?  
>          **QStar8085432** 6 hours ago  
>          god I hope so… no jumps (boo) but that STEP SEQUENCE nnngh  
>          **Bulletproof Heart** 6 hours ago  
>          I KNOW FDFHDGFHS
> 
>  

“Are you reading the comments??” Phichit lunges for his phone like a demon possessed, which Yuuri likes to believe is the only reason he doesn’t get to react in time. “Yuuri, what did we say was Rule Number One about reading Youtube comments, _especially_ on videos of you?”

Yuuri grunts as he rights himself up from the undignified sprawl he fell into in an attempt to keep his phone. “They actually weren’t that bad?” he admits, sounding a bit more surprised than he probably should be.

“Irrelevant! Your phone is hereby confiscated until tomorrow morning.” Yuuri whines in protest, but Phichit is having none of it, stashing the phone into his bedside drawer. “We should probably turn in, anyway. Tomorrow’s a big day. You’re finally gonna show Ciao Ciao, right?”

Later, after Phichit clicks off the lights, Yuuri stares at the ceiling and traces out steps and turns in his mind. He imagines how he’ll skate it end-to-end in front of Celestino for the first time, and his heartbeat quickens. He likens the thumping in his chest to the beat of the song, and when he imagines Victor, shining eyes and sugary smile and warm hands _Victor_ , the beat speeds up.

Yuuri pulls his covers over his head and touches his hands to his face. It feels warm, or his palms feel icy, but neither the song in his head nor the dance in his chest slows down.

He’s fought against nerves and disappointment for so long that it takes him far too long to realize: when he pulls his hands from his face and feels himself smiling, he realizes he’s not nervous at all.

He’s… happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO MUCH MUSIC in this one guys! As always, in case you skipped the inline links, I’ve got you covered.  
> In order of appearance:  
> \- Victor’s [flamenco song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn77IReyPGU) ;)  
> \- Wagner's [Tannhäuser Overture](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTM7E4-DN0o) performed by Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic  
> \- [Take Five](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmDDOFXSgAs) by Dave Brubeck  
> \- [Sing Sing Sing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2S1I_ien6A) by Benny Goodman  
> \- It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing): my [favorite version](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2iEulpX910) is a collaboration between Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. But [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRGlQ36ykXc) with the Raphael Jost Standards Trio feat. Christoph Grab is closer to the 'skate-able' version Victor had in mind.  
> \- My Heart Stood Still: [Chet Baker's](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY_35hBLJYQ) voice is so soothing | [Skate-able version](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaH7GpoOiM) by the Joe Wilder Quartet  
> \- Lullaby of Birdland: The legendary [Ella Fitzgerald](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY8zK4R9oE8) | [Skate-able version](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDDYO8zYA8U) by the Teddy Wilson Trio... which you can imagine to be very close to how it's eventually performed by the Sticky Splinters for Yuuri's Short Program (the length is just about right, too) :)  
> 


	4. With Our Lips

The first time Yuuri shows Celestino the full step sequence -- with all the hip-swaying, finger-snapping swagger that it entails -- it takes only a few seconds of the older man's wordless stare to send Yuuri into a panic. This was a terrible idea. This was the worst idea. He immediately begins composing the apology in his head: _I'm sorry, I didn't know what I was thinking, please choose the music and choreography for me after all, like we've always done…_

“I have to say, I was a little bit apprehensive when you said you wanted to ‘surprise’ me with the choreography,” Celestino finally says. “But this -- this is really something.”

His train of thought screeches to a halt. “You…” He swallows back the _'sure?'_ that was coming. “You like it?”

“I don’t know what it is that happened to you in these last couple of months.” Celestino breaks into a wide grin. “But I’ve never seen you like this before, Yuuri. Whatever’s got you inspired, it’s set your heart on fire.”

There's a part of him that dissects the words as they come, one at a time. He strings them together in his mind and tries to find the catch, a misheard emphasis or something lost in translation that could still turn this into a bad thing.

He can't. He can't find it. Celestino _likes_ his program.

“Give me a bit of time to sit down with the music, and we can talk jumps after lunch. How’s your quad salchow?”

Yuuri winces. “Same as it’s always been.”

“Let’s shoot to nail it this season. There’s a part in the second verse where they really hammer the piano that’s practically begging for a quad sal.” Celestino hums a few bars, and Yuuri has listened to the song enough times to immediately know where that is. It'll be in the second half of his program. “You had friends perform this, yes?”

He nods. He wonders if he should provide a more 'innocent' cover story for where the music came from, something that won't have him asking follow-up questions and possibly considering a curfew, but by the time the worry forms in his head, he's already talking. “They play at a jazz bar nearby -- _Butcher’s Keys?_ Phichit and I went one time, after I got back from Japan.” Technically not a lie, he tells himself.

Celestino stares at him again, in the same way as before. Yuuri braces himself for an onslaught of grilling that somehow never comes. “Something’s different about you this time, Yuuri.” He strokes his chin. “I haven’t figured out what it is yet, but I like it.”

“Really? I'm glad.” Yuuri breathes a sigh of relief. “I was afraid you’d hate it.”

“Not a chance. In fact…” The gleam that was growing in Celestino's eye reaches maximum brightness, and all of a sudden Yuuri feels heavy hands on his shoulders. “How would you like to produce your own free skate?”

 

* * *

 

“What about _[In a Sentimental Mood](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCQfTNOC5aE)?_ ” Victor’s hooked up his laptop to a pair of external speakers, and he adjusts the volume on them before playing the video. “Here, have a listen. John Coltrane? Duke Ellington? You can’t possibly go wrong with them.”

Jazz sounds perfect on a rainy mid-April Sunday afternoon, Yuuri finds. The muffled sound of raindrops pattering against Victor’s windows plays nicely against the quiet drumming, and the patient repetition of piano chords almost resembling a telephone ring. It wasn’t raining when Yuuri got here, bearing gifts of bento lunch and dog biscuits. That was an hour ago though, and from the way the sun never peeked out from behind the clouds all morning, he really should have seen this coming.

There’s a short drum roll a couple of measures in, still soft and tame but demanding attention nonetheless. What it heralds: notes spilling out from a saxophone, starting off high and getting higher, asking a question. And: _shhh_ , the piano seems to respond. _Calm down. It’ll all be fine_. “Hmmm.”

“The length is good too, no? For a free skate?”

Yuuri laughs. “Did you look that up?”

“I know _some_ things.” Victor, with his flair for the dramatic that Yuuri is starting to appreciate, clutches a hand to his heart, mock-wounded. “Well? What do you think?”

“I dunno. It’s very… dreamy, I guess?” Yuuri thinks he can probably envision himself skating to it if he really tries -- he just has to follow the saxophone, mostly, and its searching melody. But he has to force the image into his head; it doesn’t come naturally. “Like I can imagine cramming for an exam to it at 4 a.m., and it would help, a little bit. Or, hanging out with a huge mug of tea with a thunderstorm outside.”

“Like today? Is that my hint to make you some tea?” Victor makes no attempt to even seem like he’s considering getting up, though, staying slouched on the couch with his socked feet propped up onto the coffee table, laptop balanced on his thighs. “But I think I get it. Takes too much effort to picture yourself skating to it?”

Yuuri nods. “Any other suggestions?”

“There’s…” Victor trails off as he clicks through related videos, links in the comments, playlists -- he’s doing that thing again, where he gets click-happy and severely underestimates his browser header’s real estate. He starts and stops a few of the songs, one after another, before settling on the second-to-last one. “How about this?  _[Waltz for Debby](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH3GSrCmzC8)_. Length is perfect again, too.”

The piano opens itself up, sweet and clear as a bell, reminding him of his mother’s musical jewelry box back home. Then it grows faster, builds volume and -- a jump here, perhaps? No, the following chords are too… no, he can’t. He glances at the black-and-white video and his mind wanders; he tries to imagine Victor at the piano, wearing glasses, with his hair slicked back completely for once. “Mmm.”

Victor chuckles. “You’re saying no to Bill Evans? Harsh, Yuuri.”

“N-no, the music is great.”

“I know, it’s alright. I’m the one who told you never to settle. We’ll keep looking.”

More tabs are opened, more songs are played. Most of the time it’s Victor rejecting them outright. Or they lock eyes until one of them shakes his head, and the music stops. At Yuuri’s feet, curled up on the floor, Makkachin wags her tail to some of the songs, and he wonders if they can just use that as their standard for what music to choose.

There’s a lull when they run low on options, and Victor has to physically tear himself up from the dent he’s made on the couch to go find his laptop charger. Yuuri thinks about retrieving the lunch boxes he brought from Victor’s drying rack, but Makkachin chooses that moment to shuffle over and rest her head on his feet, so that’s the end of that.

He leans back and closes his eyes.

Being with Victor is… something, he doesn’t want to call it _easy_ , because that doesn’t sound right. Victor is refuge on a stormy day. Whenever Yuuri’s with him, he’s too busy listening to his music recommendations while playing with Makkachin, or tormenting him with horror movies, or engaging in some other silly little thing the pianist finds amusing. In these four walls he forgets about last year’s technical scores, about the quadruple salchow, about the ‘ _what next?_ ’ ever-looming on the horizon. For all that Victor has brought music into his life, in more ways than one, he somehow stops all the noise from the spaces he claims for himself in Yuuri’s head, if only for a while.

The couch dips next to him, and he picks up on the smell of chai. Yuuri opens his eyes. “Have you ever composed anything?”

He’s not sure where the question came from. In any case, Victor’s too busy fumbling with the tangled charger cable to hear. “Say, do you do this every season?” he asks Yuuri instead.

“Do what every season?”

“Choose your own music for your programs. Some skaters leave this to their choreographers or coaches, no?”

Yuuri flushes. “This is the, uh, second time. I tried once before, but it didn’t work out.”

“Oh?” Victor finally wins his battle with the cable. “Do tell.”

“It was, ah... something a friend of a friend composed.”

“Wow!”

“No, not like that -- she was a Music student, she owed our mutual friend a favor, and he owed _me_ a favor, so. You know.”

“Can I hear it?”

“No!” Yuuri blurts out before thinking. When his thoughts do catch up to him, the answer is the same anyway, if not more vehement. “What? Why? No.”

“Yuuri. If I’m going to be helping you with your musical choices, then a piece that you commissioned for a previous season and planned to use is something I ought to hear, isn’t it?” When that doesn’t work, Victor slowly inches forward, until his scowling face is only inches away from Yuuri’s ear. “Yuuuuuriiii...”

“Okay, okay!” Yuuri finally gives, and pushes him back with a huff. “Um, I don’t have it on my phone anymore, but I might still have it on my computer. I’ll email it to you when I get home, okay?”

“Okay!”

It’s hard to deny Victor anything, especially when just the promise of it has already brought out that heart-shaped smile. Yuuri sighs and picks up the steaming mug of tea that was placed on the coffee table in front of him, leaning back to stretch his legs.

When did he even get that piece, anyway? He doesn’t know -- he remembers Phichit’s cheerful introductions at a bubble tea place, and he remembers that the necklace she was wearing that day had a pendant that looked like a dolphin. And he’ll always remember the opening measures of the piece she ended up giving him -- bright, hopeful notes, full of yearning -- but not much else. Not anything important.

It doesn’t matter, he supposes. It’s not like his 3,000-strong inbox has seen a purge in its lifetime. He supposes he’ll just find the thread from Ketty and forward the whole thing to Victor, attachments and all, and that’ll be the end of it. “I don’t know what you’re expecting though,” he murmurs. “My coach nixed it. He knew I couldn’t win with it.”

“He said that?”

“He…” Yuuri trails off. Did he, actually? In his head, Celestino always said something to that effect, but now that he tries to recall the exact words, Yuuri finds that he can’t.

“Was it a bad piece?”

“No. I liked it, anyway. I guess it just… I don’t know.” Yuuri clutches the warm mug in his hands, trying to find words spelled out in his tea. “It felt like something was missing, in the end. Like you could listen to parts of it here and there, and it would be great. But all together… maybe it felt incomplete, somehow? Like there was something... lacking, I guess, somewhere or another.” A sad chuckle bubbles out of his throat, a struggle. “Just as well. I asked her to compose something that represented my career, after all. Nobody can say she didn’t deliver.”

Victor’s eyes are on him, a prickling tingle on his cheek and the side of his neck. Yuuri takes a sip of the tea before his mind can try to guess if that look is one of pity, or judgment, or some combination of the two. He’s not going to look to confirm.

“But you career isn’t over yet,” Victor finally ventures. “You’ll be competing for at least one more season, right?”

Yuuri doesn’t know why he added the ‘at least’ there. “Sure. I’m giving it my all this time because… well, I don’t want to have any regrets?”

“Of course.”

He’s not sure what to say after that. The not-silence that follows tells him that Victor never actually stopped the last video, and has been letting Youtube auto-play whatever’s up next this whole time. _‘[My Foolish Heart](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2LFVWBmoiw)’_ , the screen reads when he glances up at it. The soft drums are the rush of rain; the bass anchors the beat of his heart into something tranquil.

Something about the pensive, questioning piano chords chips at the dam around his mind. “I... can’t say there was a time I didn’t want to win it all,” he whispers. “Skating’s been my whole life for such a long time. I guess you could say there wasn’t anything else I could really set my sights on, because there wasn’t much else I had going on. Because of skating.”

The tea is lukewarm now, all of the pleasant heat gone from the mug and seeped into his palms. He can still feel Victor looking at him.

“I was -- I was just so afraid to hope, you know? I guess a part of me now still is.”

Victor hums at that, scrolling through the comments on the video, obviously reading none of them. “Hoping for it and wanting it are the same thing, no?”

Are they? Wanting the gold medal, wanting to grin through the flashes of dozens of cameras if only for the chance to skate the victory lap with the flag on his back -- there were some moments, sure, once in a blue moon when he closed his eyes and let himself get lost in his thoughts, where that fantasy actually seemed possible. But then reality swept in, as it always did, with his flubbed jumps and his heart in his throat as spun, threatening to burst. 68.87 full points behind Christophe Giacometti -- who’s older than he is, so Yuuri can’t even use that as an excuse.

“We had a poodle, back home. Like Makkachin. Well, smaller than Makkachin. By a lot. But he was the same color, and…” He drops that train of thought and tries again: “At last year’s Grand Prix Final, my sister called after the Short Program and told me he’d died.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”

Yuuri shakes his head. Well, he’s right, it _was_ awful, but that’s not the point. “I crashed and burned pretty badly the next day, and… well I guess you might’ve Googled what happened next.” He gulps down the last of his tea, lets out a breath through his teeth. “I just… I keep thinking now that it was just the final straw. That I wasn’t able to see him for five years. I left him -- I left _everyone_ back home, and -- and God knows how much money my family’s already burned on me because of my skating. _So_ much of people’s time and effort that I’ve wasted and all I’ve got to show for it is…” He gestures vaguely to himself. “This.”

Two minutes into the video, Bill Evans’ hands come crashing down onto the piano, and the melody finally seems to find itself.

“This is why you’re doing everything different this year,” Victor says. “Shooting for the moon.”

“When I leave the ice, I want to do it knowing I gave it all I had.” It comes out in a whisper, and when Yuuri feels the words slip from his mouth, there’s a split second where he’s not sure if they were supposed to ever leave his head. He straightens up to place his empty mug back onto the coffee table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suddenly dump all of that on you. I’m sorry.”

Victor shakes his head. “I’m grateful that you shared it with me,” he says quietly.

“Really?” Yuuri tries for a lame chuckle. “Sure I didn’t bore you?”

Victor doesn’t reply. He just stops the video and stands up.

It’s not that big of an apartment, and from the couch it’s a very short walk to the piano. Makkachin follows in a heartbeat, and Yuuri takes that as his cue to do the same. “Victor?” he calls out curiously.

Victor sits unmoving, staring at the keys for a very long time.

“You asked me earlier, if I’ve ever composed anything.” So he _did_ hear that, then. Yuuri nods dumbly, but Victor isn’t even looking at him, just chewing on his lip. “I… this is… I don’t know what this is, exactly. But I’ve been working on it for some time, and…”

Victor trails off, almost as though hoping Yuuri will interrupt him. He doesn’t, though, and so Victor takes a deep breath.  

“It’s not finished. I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it. But you asked, so…”

It’s at this point that the pianist finally runs out of words. Clamping his mouth shut, he fixes his gaze onto the keys in front of him, and starts to play.

The first thing Yuuri thinks is: it’s not jazz.

The second: oh -- [it’s lovely](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9srIUYkOchU).

The first few measure live among the lower notes, rich and powerful, brimming with promise. It sounds like it could be a lyrical piece, and at the end of what would be every line, there’s something poetic about the way Victor lifts his left hand, the curve of his wrist as it traces the air. The elegant splay of the fingers of his right hand as they dance towards the higher notes. And again.

There -- those few quiet, high notes, ascending -- that’s a jump. And when the melody returns, back to the lower tones -- that’s the landing.

There’s no denying the somber quality of the piece. He sees it, he thinks, when Victor crosses his left arm over to reach a series of three higher keys for the harmony, and Yuuri glimpses the tightness between his brows, the turn of his mouth. But there’s something beautiful about it too, and Yuuri’s already latching on -- onto a repeated sequence of notes that could support another jump, or a shaky but powerful surge in the music that could propel him into a flying sit-spin, spinning, spinning, until the music softens and he’s upright and he… stops. Stops.

Because the next notes are downright mournful, and Yuuri can see: a sad lift of the arm, reaching out to someone.

To ‘wait’? No, something else.

_‘Come back’?_

Maybe -- a tentative step forward on the ice. Another, momentum building. Victor staggers the keys and suddenly it’s the sweep of foot, and Yuuri can hear the scrape of ice against skate.

The low notes return, loud, demanding ... almost _angry_ , and that’s a triple jump combo, the lowest notes in that near-frantic jumble are when his skate hits the ice, and then --

And then the notes get quieter; the melody dissolves. It’s over too soon.

“That’s all I’ve got. I’m sorry.”

Yuuri doesn’t care. “This.” That’s not a sentence, he knows, but he also knows that he’s trembling, and he can’t remember when he’s last been this excited about choosing music… or about anything, really, in recent memory. “This is it. Victor, I want to skate to this!”

Victor gives him a weak laugh. “I already told you it’s unfinished, right? How long was that even, two minutes or something? Half a program?”

“Could you? Finish it, I mean?” Yuuri’s heart beats like he’s done all of the jumps he just imagined. It was all so _clear_ , and that’s how he knows he wants this. “I-I’ll pay you, upfront if you want it! Uh, just tell me how much the going rate is? Because I have no idea… usually my coach handles that, I guess I can ask him -- ”

“Stop.” Victor smiles, waving a hand in front of his face. “Yuuri, if I do this, it will be the same arrangement as we did with your Short Program. I’ll bill you for my services when you win something.”

“O...kay?” That _still_ doesn’t make any sense to him. “Thanks?”

Victor’s smile turns crooked as he stares at the piano. “But… no promises for this, okay?”

“Of course.” He pushes aside the last few images that are still flashing in his head, turns and spins that pair with those few final notes he heard. It’s a huge imposition, he’s aware. The last thing he wants to do is make Victor resent him. “Of course. Sorry, no pressure -- you’ve done so much for me already.”

“...No. You’re the one who’s too kind to me,” Yuuri thinks he hears him whisper. But when he turns with a questioning look, Victor already has on his usual bright, heart-shaped smile. “Do you want some more tea?”

 

* * *

 

 

The rain does not stop for the whole day. They end up watching videos of jazz performances just for the heck of it, and then a series of cute dog videos because Yuuri refuses to let Victor pull up clips of his previous skates. At some point, Victor stands up and declares he’s going to get some pizza from downstairs for dinner, and in the roughly one full minute, tops, that he’s exposed to the outdoors, he manages to become completely drenched.

“Nope,” Victor says before Yuuri can get a word out. “You don’t want to head out there. Stay, wait the storm out with me.”

They split the pizza, which is big enough that Yuuri thinks there’s no way Victor didn’t anticipate him staying. He promises Victor he’ll pay for dinner next time, and promises himself that he’ll spend some extra time at the gym to pay for all of these calories.

They watch movies on Victor’s laptop, taking up the exact same positions on the couch as they did when they were selecting music, except this time Makkachin joins them on Victor’s other side. Victor makes popcorn and reheats some pizza after the first movie, and it takes all of Yuuri’s self-control to resist. If there is one great injustice in the world, it’s that Victor can eat like he does with seemingly no consequences.

Or maybe there’s one consequence, because halfway through the second movie, Yuuri sees the pianist’s head drooping from the corner of his eye.

“Hey.” Yuuri pokes him in the side, and laughs when he jerks. “You’re not even awake.”

Victor blinks at him with a rueful smile, bleary-eyed. “Sorry, that was rude. I don’t think I missed much, though, did I?”

Yuuri pauses the video anyway, and turns to look at him fully as he yawns. “Tired?”

“Always.” The word seems to come out before the other man even thought about it. Victor blinks a few times, as though he’s just now really, truly waking up. “Uh. I think it’s the hours, and the rain,” he amends. “Sorry, Yuuri.”

Yuuri shakes his head, raising up his hands in a placating gesture. “We can stop if you like.”

“No, no, I’d hate to. You seem really into it.”

He doesn’t miss the slightly teasing tone at the end. “I’m only invested because I’ve played the video game,” he mumbles. “Do you play any?”

“Afraid not. I’m too ancient for that, or so I’ve been told.”

“Oh.” Yuuri glances at Makkachin, who’s napping against Victor’s side, and then at the clock. The guilt gnaws at him, and he suddenly feels very keenly that he might have become too comfortable here. He doesn’t want to overstay his welcome, but maybe he already has. “Look, the rain’s not even that terrible anymore. I can probably go -- ”

“Nope.” Victor reaches over to move the laptop onto the arm of the couch next to Yuuri. He then promptly drops his head onto Yuuri’s lap, which short-circuits his attempt to finish that sentence.

“Uhhhhhh…”

He doesn’t get to form any words beyond that, though not for lack of trying. It’s not like Victor’s listening to him anyway, with one of the couch pillows hugged to his chest, and his eyes already closed.

On the bright side, at least this way he doesn’t see the embarrassing shade of red Yuuri’s face has surely become. Though, from the way his cheeks positively burn, he’s not sure it isn’t closer to purple. Or how he has any blood left anywhere else.

He waits for a few seconds, to see if anything even more ridiculous might happen. When it becomes clear that Victor’s not going to be getting up anytime soon, Yuuri pulls his headphones out of his pockets, plugs them in, and resumes the movie for himself.

Before he knows it, the movie’s over. He doesn’t remember half of what he just watched.

He finds himself staring down at Victor’s sleeping face, allowing himself to take this rare, selfish chance to observe the other man without having to be discreet about it. Victor took a five-minute shower after coming in soaked from getting pizza, so his hair is still damp, and Yuuri marvels at the shade of it. Hesitantly, he reaches out to touch -- push the fringe back, away from his face.

He shoots a guilty glance at Makkachin, before he can realize how ridiculous that is. This -- this feels like intruding, somewhat. But Victor was the one who laid his head on Yuuri’s lap first, so maybe… maybe this is okay?

Also: he can’t seem to stop. He can’t seem to want to.

Yuuri’s hand wanders, almost out of its own accord, tracing and mapping the contours of Victor’s face. His cheekbones, his jawline, the shell of his ear that turns sweetly red when frozen by winter air. Dark circles under tired eyelids. Then there’s that Cupid’s bow that gives him his unique smile…

His hand lingers. A single, wayward thought sprouts in his mind like a lightning strike, all too sudden and just as terrifying -- something about replacing his hand with something else.

No. Ridiculous.

His hand retreats to safer ground, and finds Victor’s hair again. The strands slip between his fingers, and he moves his hand to let them catch the meager light. It’s more fascinating than it probably should be, running his hands through Victor’s hair. He admires how soft it is, the way he remembers it moves whenever the pianist turns his head, even the way his fringe falls over his face and eclipses an eye --

Eyes. Blue eyes that have apparently slid open in the time Yuuri was lost in thought, and are now blinking up at him.

“Um… um…”

Gingerly, Victor reaches up and touches the top of his head. “Is it getting that thin?”

Yuuri yanks his hand back. “No, no, no! It’s very thick and shiny!”

“You wound me.” Victor pulls the pillow up to his face, and adds a muffled,  “I don’t think I’ll ever recover.”

“No, I didn’t mean -- stop that, what are you doing??”

It takes a surprising amount of force to pull the pillow off and stop Victor from smothering himself with it. This ends up waking Makkachin, who immediately thinks they’re playing some sort of game, and eagerly wants to join in. Yuuri yelps, struggling to keep Victor’s laptop from falling as they dissolve into a squirming, fidgety dog pile on the couch. Victor happily offers to vault them all onto the floor. Yuuri threatens to dump the rest of the popcorn onto his head.

Once they finally settle down, a quick glance outside the window tells him that the rain has stopped. “Hey, it’s late. I should really go.”

“Mmm. You can crash here, if you like. Really, I wouldn’t mind.”

Yuuri wants to. He doesn’t even try to deny it to himself, which is saying something. “I didn’t bring any other clothes. Besides, early practice tomorrow -- sorry.” As enchanting as Victor’s company is, the fact that he lives 90 minutes from the rink where Yuuri will need to be at 7 a.m. sharp is just unfortunate. “But maybe next time?”

“Hang on a bit. Before you go…” Victor untangles himself from Makkachin, and nods towards the piano. “Stay for a while? There’s something I’ve been wanting to play for you for some time now.”

Victor presses a few different keys one at a time while Yuuri laces up his trainers, as though trying to decide which one to use. A chord here, another there. An introduction that teases at the higher notes, rises higher still, swings low, then comes back up.

He’s [back to jazz](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkZ2YOtgFEk), this time. Yuuri can’t pretend to know all that much about it, but the tempo keeps him on his toes, prolonged notes followed by skittish groups of them, playful little slides serving as embellishments to the core melody. And that -- this melody...

“Do you know this song? It’s a pretty popular one.”

“It sounds familiar, but…” Yuuri frowns, trying to remember if he might have heard it at the bar. Or maybe somewhere else, but if Victor’s playing a jazz version of a non-jazz song, then he’s not sure how much of his ears he can trust. It’s hard to tell. “What’s it called?”

Victor smirks as he continues playing. “If I tell you, the first thing you’ll do is look up the lyrics online.”

“Didn’t even know it had lyrics until you mentioned it.” Still, Yuuri doesn’t contest what he just said. “Why the big mystery?”

Victor pauses, then launches into a fast-paced, ad libbed sequence that is definitely not part of the melody. Show-off. “No mystery. Just enjoy.”

There’s less improvisation when he plays the second verse, which is basically a repeat of the first. It manages to sound honest, resonating more with the lingering memory of the melody that Yuuri can’t quite unlock from the back of his head. It reminds him of… records in his father’s study, music he and his mother might have danced to on a snowy night in, a long time ago. The bridge, soaring and playful, reminds him of starlit skies in Hasetsu, him and Yuuko and Takeshi lying on the beach while guessing the names of the constellations; staring out the window at a line of planes while he and Celestino wandered Hartsfield-Jackson Airport waiting for an 11 p.m. connecting flight; nursing vending machine coffee and a sore neck as he and Phichit waited on the rooftop of the dorm building for a glimpse of a meteor shower.

 _“Sweet dreams, ‘til sunbeams find you_  
_Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you_ _  
But in your dreams, whatever they be…_ ”

Victor doesn’t sing the last line, just like he didn’t sing any of the lines before those three. But he plays it with a smile.

 

* * *

 

Victor lingers, humming, as Yuuri puts on his jacket. He lingers when Yuuri turns the doorknob, wincing at the nip of the cold breeze.

He lingers at the doorway, and Yuuri realizes that he notices this because _he’s_ lingering too. How about that.

“Um. What are you doing?”

“I’m seeing you off to my door, like any good host would do.” Victor leans against the trim. “Did you want me to wait for the bus with you?”

“N-no, that’s fine.”

“Then what are _you_ doing?”

Good question. Yuuri’s head is too full of piano chords and thoughts of starlight to string together a good response. What is he doing? He’s… stalling, is what it looks like. He’s standing at Victor’s doorway, making him wait with the door open and letting the cold breeze into the apartment because he’s an awful person. He’s wasting time, making it increasingly likely that he will miss the bus and have to wait an hour for the next one.

The night is dark, and he imagines it’s full of stars. Yuuri stands in front of Victor, lingering in his doorway, because every fiber of his being wants to kiss him.

But he’s not brave enough for that right now. He’s not sure if he ever will be, either. So he swallows back his heart and pulls Victor into a tight hug.

“Thank you,” he stammers, “f-for everything you’ve done for me so far.” He feels the pianist’s arms encircle his waist, after a moment’s pause. And he learns that maybe he’s got a bit of courage left in him after all, when he finds himself saying, “Victor, you -- if there’s anything I can do for you… you’ll tell me, right?”

Victor doesn’t say anything, just tightens his hold, and buries his face into Yuuri’s shoulder. Yuuri feels strands of hair tickling the nape of his neck, and wonders if he imagines the tremor that follows. His own chest aches in response… but he’s not sure to what.

“Victor?” He swallows hard. There are so many things he wants to ask, questions that have been simmering in his head for these past few weeks. _Are you alright? Did something happen?_ And: _What can I do to make it better?_ None of them makes it past his throat tonight. “Promise me?”

“Of course.” Lips press against his cheek, chaste and fleeting -- and he’ll probably spend all night and the next few nights convincing himself he didn’t imagine _this_ , but it’s not a problem now. Nothing has felt more real. “Good night, Yuuri.”

“Good night, Victor.”

When he walks away from Victor that night, it feels a bit like the first time: hurried steps, burning cheeks, a rush of adrenaline in his veins. But he feels a lot less like a coward now than he did then.

 

* * *

 

> **Minako-sensei**
> 
> I listened to the song preview!!

 

Yuuri wakes up slowly, disoriented, after the harsh buzz of his phone vibrating atop his bedside table. As he reaches out to fumble for his glasses, his arm tingles, because apparently he thought it was a good idea to sleep on it again.

It takes him entirely too long to register that Minako-sensei is texting him at this godforsaken hour, and even longer to remember what she might mean by ‘song preview’. It took some effort to get Victor to agree to play his composition again, so that Yuuri could record what he has so far: an intro, two verses, and a refrain of some sort clocked in at just shy of two minutes, far too short to be of any use in a free program. Still, he sent it to her anyway, because he wanted her feedback. That was two days ago.

Something about the song is eating at him, more than his unquenchable urge to skate to it.

 

> **Minako-sensei**
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> WAIT
> 
> ISN’T IT 4 AM THERE WHY ARE YOU AWAKE

 

Yuuri sighs. He pushes his glasses up to rub at his eyes. He has less than three hours until his alarm rings.

 

> **Minako-sensei**
> 
> In all honesty?
> 
> From what I’ve heard so far it sounds sad.
> 
> Or lonely.
> 
> Kind of like someone reaching out and  
>  hoping for something?
> 
> No, not really...
> 
> It’s almost like whoever it is, they’re afraid to hope
> 
> That, or they’re tired of it? I hope I’m making sense
> 
> There’s hesitation, but I’m also getting hints of  
>  bitterness. So it’s a toss-up.

 

Bitterness? Yuuri thinks of the way Victor played the piece for the first time, all half-formed, stammered disclaimers beforehand, quiet almost-apologies and non-promises after. Everything that came in between, though, was transcendent.

Is she suggesting that all of that was borne of pain, then? Was this a mistake?

 

> **Minako-sensei**
> 
> Anyway
> 
> I haven’t heard the full piece, so who knows. I’ll  
>  start thinking about moves for what you’ve sent  
>  me so far.
> 
> Thank you
> 
> Don’t just thank me, you come up with moves too!
> 
> Fair warning though, the mood might change  
>  when I get to hear the full song.
> 
> Who knows? Maybe they get their happy ending.

 

Yuuri doesn’t reply to that. He doesn’t know what to say.

But he doesn’t get back to sleep right away, either. The words weigh heavily on his mind, and he doesn’t drift off until the sky outside already looks like dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MUSIC! In order of appearance:  
> \- [In a Sentimental Mood](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCQfTNOC5aE) by Duke Ellington and John Coltrane  
> \- [Waltz for Debby](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH3GSrCmzC8) with Bill Evans, Chuck Israels, and Larry Bunker  
> \- [My Foolish Heart](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2LFVWBmoiw), also with Bill Evans, Chuck Israels, and Larry Bunker  
> \- Victor’s [‘unfinished composition’](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9srIUYkOchU) \-- I adore this cover of _Stammi Vicino_ by 梨音rion_502. In the story, Victor would have stopped playing and just ad libbed something short to resolve the melody at around the ~1:51 to 1:54 mark, because that’s as far as he’s gone.  
>  \- Dream A Little Dream of Me: This is another jazz standard, but I’m a sucker for [this version by Michael Bublé](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asDvLON9PUU). Victor's piano arrangement would have sounded like [this one by Alfonso Gugliucci](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkZ2YOtgFEk).
> 
> I've got 3,000+ characters left, so I just wanted to say thank you so much for the support so far, everyone! Also, quite a lot of you have commented on the music, so I was wondering if there's any appetite for a playlist with the music used in this fic? It would have to be updated as the story goes (because otherwise, spoilers lol) but do let me know if this is something anyone would be interested in. I aim to please. :)
> 
> (Next chapter: an angry Russian punk appears!)


	5. He Really Knows How to Cry

There’s a bit of a routine that’s born in the weeks that follow, in the quiet glimpses of waking time squeezed between skating and training. Not that Victor seems to be any less busy; Leo’s only taking two courses for the spring semester, which means he has more free time on his hands, and so the Sticky Splinters get booked at _Butcher’s Keys_ for five nights a week instead of three. In any case, it starts with those late Sunday lunches at Victor’s that keep happening week after week. Then, it’s dinner on Wednesdays when Yuuri’s training finishes at a decent hour. It’s phone call bookends: Yuuri’s alarm becomes Victor calling him at 6 a.m., chattering about last night’s patrons and their set list, and ‘ _Did you know Georgi’s dating one of the waitresses now?_ ’; Victor calls him again at 11 p.m., just after their first intermission, and Yuuri drifts off to the faint strains of jazz music, the distant clinking of glass, the murmur of the crowd.

There’s a conversation they don’t have, that maybe they should have had by now: what they are to each other, what they want from each other, and all of what falls in between. But Yuuri’s in no hurry, and he and Victor have fallen into a routine. This is fine for now.

The only problem with finding comfort in routine is that when something breaks it, things have a chance of going to hell.

The next Sunday that Yuuri shows up at Victor’s place, he hears voices from inside the apartment, speaking in what he can only assume is Russian. He pushes open the door that’s been left unlocked to see that Victor is arguing with… someone shorter than him, that’s all Yuuri can get from here, and from the pulled-up hood that hides the other person’s face.

He steps further into the apartment, letting the door click shut behind him. Blond hair… likely Russian, but that was a given from the start. He’s also angry -- really angry, all clenched fists and harsh, hissed-out consonants, and spitfire.

He looks familiar. Where has he seen this kid before?

Seeing that Victor doesn’t at least seem to be in any real danger, Yuuri wonders if he’d be better off making himself scarce, and asking Victor about whatever this is later. He’s about to turn around when Makkachin spots him. Then before he knows it, she’s barreling over to him with a boisterous bark, and that’s what finally seems to kill the argument.

“Yuuri? Sorry about this, I didn’t -- ” Victor catches himself, and breaks into a laugh that melts the tension from his face and shoulders. “Oh, you’re both named Yuuri. That’s kind of funny. Also kind of inconvenient.”

Yuuri?

Oh. Not Yuuri. _Yuri._

He remembers now: his mother’s kind, kind voice from too many time zones away, tears spilling out without his permission, a loud _bang_ against the door and his stall rattling like it was the end of the world. Yuri Plisetsky looks more or less the same as he did the last time Yuuri saw him. His hair’s gotten a bit longer, and he’s traded the Russian team jacket for something in animal print and black, but everything else about him looks the same. The expression on his face certainly does; the way his eyes narrow into slits and his lip curls as he snarls something nasty in Russian, Yuuri almost imagines he’s being asked to retire again.

“Let’s not be rude, Yura,” Victor tells him in English.

Yuuri isn’t sure what to make of his tone. It sounds civil, which is better than the open hostility he walked into just a few minutes ago, but still clipped. “Victor, is this a bad time?” he asks.

If nothing else, Victor is at least still capable of smiling at him. “I’m really sorry, Yuuri. Can we take a rain check? I didn’t expect -- ”

“No, stay,” Yuri spits out. “Having another witness here besides that dog might be the only thing that stops me from strangling this old man to death.” He whirls around, and shoves an accusing finger at the pianist. “Do you know how hard I looked for you, you bastard? How many fucking _years_ it took?”

Victor doesn't answer that. He buries his fingers in the curls on top of Makkachin's head when she trots up to him, whining softly. _'What's going on?'_ she seems to be asking, which really seems to be the question of the hour right now. “How did you find me?”

“An infuriating mix of luck, timing, and your weird online fangirls with their goddamn conspiracy theories...” Yuri trails off, and then all of a sudden he’s looking in Yuuri’s direction. Whatever the reason for that might be, Yuuri has no idea -- he’s still struggling to grasp half of what has been happening here from the start. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. What’s important is that I found you just in time for you to fulfill your promise to me. Or did you choose to forget all about that too?”

A momentary tightness in Victor’s jaw gives him away. His eyes flicker briefly to the younger skater, and then to the piano. This, at least, makes some sense to Yuuri, who can’t imagine what else this ‘promise’ could be about. “I promised I’d play something for you, right?”

“You _did_ forget,” Yuri sneers. “How fucking predictable.” Turning to face Yuuri again, he barks, “Did he make you the same promise too? What’d it take to get him to deliver?”

“I didn’t -- ”

“He has nothing to do with this.” Victor gestures pointedly in Yuri’s direction, which is when Yuuri notices the folder in his grasp, and the sheets of paper stuffed haphazardly into it. He sees lines and notes from the parts sticking out. “Is that it?”

Yuri doesn’t deny it, just hands over the whole folder. “Figured I should bring a copy. In case you forgot _this_ , too.”

“ _Allegro Apassionato in B Minor_ ,” Victor reads aloud. He lets out a hollow laugh. “Of course.”

“My coach chose it, not me. Said it had ‘significance’, and that you’d appreciate that.”

“You’re aware the piece is for piano and orchestra, yes?”

Yuri yanks out an unmarked CD case from inside his jacket. “Just tell me where I can play this and you’ll have your orchestra.”

Victor’s eyes widen. “You want to do this _here_?”

“Obviously not, my coach is booking time at a recording studio as we speak. I’m just here because I want a trial run. I need to know if you’ve still got it, you senile old man!”

Something shifts in the first few seconds of silence after that outburst, something palpable that has Yuuri taking an unconscious step back. He almost doesn’t recognize Victor when he turns the sheet music around to face Yuri, wearing the coldest smile Yuuri has ever seen on him, on _anyone._

“You really think I can’t play this?”

“How the fuck should I know? It’s been years, Victor!” He points a finger at Yuuri, and it’s not clear whether it’s shaking completely out of anger, or possibly something else. “I heard what you played for this loser’s short program, and as far as I can tell, you’re as good as dead!”

“Is that what they’re saying? That I’m dead?”

In what’s perhaps the first exercise of restraint he’s shown since getting here, Yuri visibly bites back whatever it was he was going to say to that.

And maybe it’s telling how completely clueless he is, that even against the part of him that wants this all to _stop_ \-- just stop, and let Victor be happy again, please? -- there's a part of him that’s warring, desperate to make sense of this all. _What the hell is going on?_

Victor breaks the silence himself, grabbing the CD from Yuri’s grasp. “I suppose you couldn’t find a single other pianist in Moscow who could do this for you.”

“I didn’t _want_ any other pianist in Moscow, and you made a fucking promise!!” Yuri dogs the pianist’s heels as he goes to retrieve his laptop, and Yuuri, against all better judgment it seems, follows them both. “Look, it’s my senior debut. I’m going to win,” he shoots a pointed glance Yuuri’s way, “and put Russia back on the map for men’s skating.” His gaze snaps back to Victor. “So it _has_ to be you -- you understand that, right?”

Victor looks like he hasn’t even been listening, thrusting the laptop wordlessly into Yuri’s arms before taking his seat at the piano. He’s already put the CD in, Yuuri guesses, from the soft whirring noise that the machine makes, and the window that pops open on the screen a few seconds after the sound dies down.

“All you have to do is press ‘play’. Count me down from four before you do.”  

This is wrong, he thinks. Victor sitting at the piano has never looked so… upset.

He wants to fix it, but he has no idea how. He wants to put a stop to this, send Yuri away, but Victor could have done that easily and Victor _hasn’t_ done that, so Yuuri has no right to interfere… right? Tension’s building, bit by bit as Yuri fiddles with the laptop, muttering under his breath. Makkachin presses herself up against Victor’s leg, her tail wagging slowly. He doesn’t even look at her.

Yuuri hesitates. He places a hand on Victor’s shoulder -- or he tries to, but stops when his hand feels like it’s hitting a wall. “Victor,” he says softly, “maybe I should come back some other time.”

Coward. Victor glances up with a start, as though just now remembering that Yuuri hasn’t left yet. He forces a smile, which Yuuri takes as a sign that Victor definitely doesn’t want him here. Not now, anyway. “Maybe that’s for the best. Sorry about this. I… I’ll call you?”

Yuuri nods. He leans down to rub at Makkachin’s ears, and she whines up at him with a pleading look. _Sorry_ , he doesn’t say out loud. _I’ll make sense of this later._ He’s not sure if he’s promising it to her, or to himself. But today seems to be a day of fulfilling promises, somehow, so at least he’s got that.

He… no, he _can’t_ stay. He already feels like such an outsider right now as it is. Whatever this is, it’s between Victor and the other Yuri, and he can’t just encroach on that, right? Right, of course, there are spaces in his and Victor’s lives that don’t overlap. Besides, it’s not like they’re… like they’re…

He tells himself he’s not sure how he was going to finish that sentence. It doesn’t matter.

He’s taking a terribly long time to leave this apartment. He knows he should go. He _wants_ to go. And it would be so easy. Nothing is stopping him. The door is right there.

Yuuri thinks his hand closing around the doorknob would feel more final than it does. He opens the door, wincing as the sunlight blinds him. His step falters, but his grip doesn’t.

He finally makes a decision, letting the door shut audibly. In front of him.

It looks like that was all they were waiting for. He hears Yuri’s muffled voice, then something that he thinks might be a click.

And then it comes in like a hurricane -- [loud, brash notes](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bzi1hPTVEM) that crash over his head and conquer the entire room in a single measure. It takes him a while to even register the backing of the orchestra from the laptop’s speakers; he only notices with the muted swell of strings against a series of insistent, repeated notes, building up at the end of the introduction. Two beats. The melody comes in frantic -- beautiful, no doubt, but _frantic_ , a nervous energy that leaps between notes. Yuuri’s drawn to it, so much that he only realizes that he started walking towards the piano when he’s already stopped.

He’s still standing a safe distance away. Maybe later he’ll think that he shouldn’t have come closer at all, because _of course_ , there’s no-one else here, but he needed to see to be sure.

The part where his hands sail across the piano, lingering, teasing those high notes until finally resolving them seals it. Victor -- Victor is playing this song.

Yuuri hears him even as the orchestra takes over the melody. He hears every chord, every little embellishment that comes from his piano. _Listen to me_ , they all demand. Or maybe it’s Victor demanding it, bearing down on the piano with such force that Yuuri’s not sure it’s just because the piece calls for it. Doesn’t matter, Victor never even put up the sheet music Yuri gave him.

Is he angry? Sometimes, Yuuri thinks so. Other times, he’ll play something light and pretty and he’ll think twice. He can’t see Victor’s face from here. He can see Yuri’s though: the widened eyes, the parted lips that look like they’re holding back praise or profanity, or maybe both. His finger’s still hovering over the touchpad of the laptop, like he’s forgotten to move since the song began.

Yuuri imagines he might look much of the same.

There’s a section in the middle that’s just strings, slow and enchanting. Victor lays his fingers softly on top of the keys for this section, silently mapping out chords that Yuuri wishes he could hear. The music builds, and Victor sneaks back in -- Yuuri’s not sure at which point. But it’s building and rising, and building and rising, and --

And that’s a jump. Where the melody plateaus, Yuuri thinks he understands what Celestino meant by music ‘begging for a quad sal’. Oh, hell.

Victor takes the song back by force, with pointed notes that stab through the air. The last part injects some new energy into him, and he hunches over the piano, throwing his shoulders into the song. It’s building again, towards something larger this time, but Victor doesn’t care because the melody is his again.

And the finale is _all_ his: rapid, triumphant notes that soar high over the trumpets backing them, a sequence that maps out the whole length of the piano. Two huge chords that shatter any doubts. Resolution.

It’s stunning.

It’s the loud click of the CD being ejected from the laptop that shakes Yuuri out of his trance. He doesn’t know how long he was waiting, how long Yuri was waiting after the song ended. He steps back, out of sight, and it doesn’t take very long after that: some words are exchanged in Russian, softer, more subdued this time. There’s no more rage or passion to be had here, not after _that_ song.

Yuri stops when he catches sight of Yuuri. He glares at him with the promise of murder, but he doesn’t say anything before continuing out the door.

The moment the door slams shut, Makkachin leaps up with a bark, resting her front paws on Victor’s lap, squeezing her head into the space under his arms. That’s when Yuuri notices that Victor hasn’t moved at all -- he hasn’t lifted his fingers from the final keys yet.  

He can’t help it anymore. Yuuri crosses the room in a few hurried strides, slides his hands under the pianist’s wrists and gently coaxes them away from the piano.

“Yuuri?” He doesn’t sound startled, not completely. But his voice comes out choked, which is disconcerting all on its own. “I -- I thought you left?”

“I…” He has no excuse. No excuse. “I’m sorry. I was going to, but -- ”

“What did you think?”

“Huh?”

“Of the piece.” Victor idly strokes Makkachin’s head with one hand, bouncing one of her paws up and down with the other, but he’s still staring at the piano. “What did you think?”

“It was good. Amazing.” Is that what Victor wants to hear? Yuuri can’t tell, he isn’t sure of anything anymore. He decides the only thing he can do is be honest. “I didn’t know -- I mean, it’s not like I didn’t _think_ you could -- it was very different from your usual stuff, but, um. Amazing.” No. Hell. Honest is useless, and Victor’s still not looking at him. “I have to say, now that I know Yuri Plisetsky’s going to be skating to something performed by you too, I’ve got to step up my game.”

“Is that so.” Victor doesn’t phrase it like a question. He wraps his arms around himself, like he’s cold all of a sudden, and looks down. Makkachin whimpers, and retreats to the floor. “Right. I’m performing both pieces for both Yuris. That’s funny, isn’t it?”

“Yeah… small world.”

“Too damn small.”

Yuuri starts at his tone. He’s about to ask what he means by that, but something else stops the words before they can form. Victor’s hair is covering his eyes, but he thinks he sees something glistening on his cheek.

Before he knows it, he’s pulling back the fringe and peering close.

“Yuuri, what are you doing?”

What indeed. Stubbornly, his hand remains. “I… I guess I’m just surprised to see you cry.”

No, no, that’s the _wrong_ thing to say, he wants to scream at himself. Say it. You coward.

_Say the damn words you’ve been wanting to say to him forever._

“Victor.” Yuuri finds his courage and cups Victor’s cheek, gently turning his head to face him. “What’s wrong?”

A thousand things are wrong. Tears catch on Victor’s eyelashes and break when he blinks, and Yuuri gets a few of them on his hand. Something claws at his chest from the inside at the sight, because this isn’t right, it can’t be. All this time, he thought -- he convinced himself that that one cold Sunday morning in March, one that felt like it happened lifetimes ago, was an anomaly.

Did he have it the other way around?

“I think you should go,” Victor finally says. He pushes Yuuri’s hand down, and manages a small smile. “I imagine I’m not very good company right now anyway.”

Yuuri isn’t sure why he asks. He isn’t sure why he thinks he needs to know. “Are you going to drink when I’m gone?”

“Answering that will only disappoint us both.”

He gets that look on his face again, that wide-eyed, horrified look like those words were never meant to make it out loud. Yuuri lets his hand fall slowly to his side, and Victor pushes himself back, digging the balls of his hands into his eyelids.

“I’m sorry. Please, I just -- I need to clear my head. Just for a little while. Please, Yuuri? I’m so sorry.”

“No, of course. I -- I’ll see myself out.”

It’s easier, this time, to make his way to the door with purpose. Victor is hurting, that much is clear to him now, enough that he actually hates himself for not paying attention sooner. But if his being here is hurting Victor more, then…

“Hey, Victor… you made a promise to me too. Remember?” He stops at the door, and swallows hard. “If there’s anything I can do, you’ll tell me. Right?”

“I remember.”

“Okay.” Yuuri lets out a breath. The doorknob feels like ice in his hand. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Yuri Plisetsky is waiting for him at the foot of the stairs, because of course he is.

“So you decided not to take my advice.” Yuri clicks his tongue in irritation. “You’re competing this season, right? Unless that step sequence you were practicing was just for shits and giggles.”

He’s about to ask, but he stops himself when he remembers that Youtube video. “Do I disappoint you?” he asks wryly.

“ _Nyet_ , come at me. I’ll crush you in Barcelona.”

“Sounds like you’re sure we’ll both make it to Barcelona.”

He gets another murderous glare for that. Yuri opens his mouth, then snaps it shut. He does this a couple more times, faltering a bit more each time, before finally just muttering, “How is he?”

“He’s fine.” It sounds like a lie. Tastes like one too. “Why?”

“I didn’t expect him to be… to look so…” He can’t seem to find the words. Shaking his head, he blows out a sigh. “Whatever, a promise is a promise. He shouldn’t have made it so easily if he wasn’t expecting me to actually collect. I’m not going to apologize.”

Yuuri wants to ask ‘for what’, exactly. Actually, there are a lot of things he wants to ask, but he’s not sure Yuri would be a very enthusiastic conversation partner. Just a hunch. And he’s already been shut out once today. “Are you going to be sticking around?”

A snort. “Fuck no. I only came here for one thing. As soon as I get it, I’m heading on the first flight back to Russia.”

“And you’ll leave him alone, is that right?” Yuuri has no idea where that just came from. But however this sudden surge of defensiveness, of _protectiveness_ came to be, it doesn’t feel wrong. He’s not going to apologize for it either.

“What’s your deal with him, anyway?” Yuri narrows his eyes. “Did he promise you a song for your free skate too? I already know he did your short program music, if you’re still hanging around then that must mean you’re getting more from him. Someone’s being a greedy pig.”

Yuuri doesn’t remember ever publicly acknowledging the Sticky Splinters, much less any of them by name, for their work. Not yet anyway, he was planning to do it at his first competition this season. “How do you know he did my short program music?”

“Well for one, you just told me.” Yuri loses the shit-eating grin he’s got on when Yuuri just stares at him, and sighs. “It was a gamble -- someone from his stupid fan club saw your video, compared the piano part to his old… look, it’s not my fault he can’t help himself. Old habits, hard to kill -- something like that?”

“I don’t follow.”

“It doesn’t matter. Whether he ends up disappearing again after this or finally stops being stupid and just _comes back to Russia_ where he _fucking_ belongs, who knows.” Yuri looks down at his feet. He’s gritting his teeth, and clenching his fists so hard that his nails are probably digging into his palms. “Throwing away everything that he had… don’t tell me you don’t think it’s pathetic.”

Everything that he had? Going back to Russia? “What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean, what am I… oh -- oh _fuck_ , don’t tell me -- ” Yuri takes one look at Yuuri’s face, which he thinks is probably one of pure confusion right now. This makes the younger skater about a hundred times angrier. “Are you fucking serious?!”

Yuuri takes a step back, holding up his hands. “I don’t -- ”

“What’s his name?”

“What?”

“His fucking _name_ , piggy, what is it?”

Is that seriously going to be Yuri’s nickname for him from now on? “Victor.” Yuri’s foot twitches, like he’s itching to kick him when Yuuri trails off, so he adds, “Popovich.”

Silence. A beat passes, then another. One more, and Yuuri is starting to wonder if Yuri is ever going to move again.

Then he does, by kicking over a nearby trash can, and letting out a string of loud, rapid Russian that sounds like most of it might be swearing.

“Hey!”

“Shut up! You’re even stupider than I thought -- you _and_ him.” Yuri spits out another curse for good measure, and then lets out a wordless, frustrated sound. “His name is Viktor Nikiforov. That’s Viktor with a ‘K’. Look him up.” He shoves past Yuuri with a snarl and marches away, only looking back to growl, “You’re welcome.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri heads for the rink later that day, even though he’s not supposed to. Celestino gives him an earful about how rest days aren’t a suggestion, and how he should know this by now, but in the end he still lets it happen.

Yuuri hasn’t needed to skate like this in some time, but he needs it now. He wonders if something on his face gave it away.

Simple figures, he tells himself. That’s all. Simple figures to clear his head. He needs that. Just like Victor did.

Going down that train of thought was a bad idea, because now his mind is on Victor. His mind is on Victor and his _Allegro Appassionato_ , the fire when he played and the ice when he stopped. His mind is on Victor and vodka and tears, and how a bottle of one might look like a bottle of the other. His mind dissects and reconstructs and re-dissects that whole experience, from Victor’s apartment to the conversation with Yuri at the foot of the stairs, churning out a list of things he should have said, should have done instead, if only he weren’t so terrible at dealing with people, with Victor, with everything.

His mind is so focused on Victor and self-deprecation that it doesn’t really take note of what the rest of him is doing -- which, he realizes, is the choreography for his short program.

Another bad idea. By the time Celestino’s voice gets through to him from the boards, he’s already in mid-air.

Terrible entry, terrible form. He’d say ‘terrible landing’, but it’s not even really a landing, just a bend at his ankle that feels wrong, very wrong -- much like the rest of this day, is all he’s thinking as he skids across the ice, the gasp only leaving his lips once he stops.

It doesn’t hurt yet, he thinks. Well, no -- something hurts, but it’s not his ankle, at least not until he actually moves his leg and curls into himself, trying to drown out the sounds of frantic voices and hurried skates heading towards him.

Grade 1 sprain, he’s told a few minutes later. Five days of ice, and _rest_. Celestino doesn’t yell out any of the words, but somehow this is worse, and Yuuri wishes he had.

 

* * *

 

**Victor**

 

> Yuuri
> 
> I’m sorry
> 
> I didn’t mean to push you away. If it seemed like  
>  that, I’m really sorry

 

Yuuri’s received about a dozen variations of these sentences for the past few hours. He does the same thing now as he did the previous times: stares at the screen for a few seconds, waits for it to lock itself, then tosses his phone back onto the bed.

He has a long, largely silent debate with himself on what to do right now. There aren’t many options, really: he’s stuck in his room, barred from both the ice rink and the dance studio. Not that he can make it very far with this sprain anyway.

He’s also alone, despite Phichit’s noble efforts. Yuuri told him he’d be fine, don’t worry, a hand-wave and ‘ _go have fun with your date from the hockey team_ ’. Phichit didn’t look terribly convinced, and even as he left he rattled off a litany of things that had to do with ice, bandages, tea, and about a dozen other things Yuuri doesn’t remember. He listened, he tried. But his mind’s been a chaotic mess all afternoon.

He attempts to rein it in with logic. Everything that happened with Yuri today was ridiculous and should probably not be taken at face value. Victor wouldn’t lie about something like his name, because… who does that?

And even if he did, then it’s probably not that big of a deal. Victor’s a jazz pianist with a regular gig at a bar in Detroit. He loves his poodle, lives above a pizza place, and sleeps at odd hours which gives him bags under his eyes. Sometimes he gets sad, and sometimes he might drink too much, but that’s it. Nothing unpleasant, nothing scandalous there.

Yuuri tries to rein it in with logic, but it doesn’t work. He needs to know. So there he goes.

And there it is, the first suggested search term when all he’s typed is ‘viktor n’: _viktor nikiforov._

_About 776,000 results (0.53 seconds)_

He has a Wikipedia page. Shit.

 

> **Viktor Vasilievich Nikiforov** (Russian: Виктор Васи́льевич Никифоров, born December 25, 1988) is a Russian classical pianist. Born in St. Petersburg, Nikiforov is the only child of Vasily Nikiforov and [...]

 

Viktor’s father has a Wikipedia page too -- a much longer one, with sections on ‘Business Career’, ‘Awards’, ‘Art Collection’, and ‘Russian politics’, among others. Yuuri gets sidetracked by the sudden hyperlink and clicks on it, skimming the new page quickly. The word ‘oligarch’ is thrown around a lot, with plenty of talk on investments, and oil and steel. He finds only one mention of the man’s family, in a tiny section on the man’s personal life at the very end of the page: married once, to his late wife Anna, who died in childbirth; son Viktor, another link that takes him back to the first page.

Back to Viktor.

Yuuri wonders, as he goes much more slowly through this article, if this Viktor that he’s reading about now is really the same as the Victor from the bar that he knows. Really, there’s not all that much here at first glance. There’s a blurb in the beginning about how this Viktor first demonstrated his musical talent at the age of three, on a piano that had been in the family mansion’s great room for only decorative purposes. A couple of sentences follow about this Viktor studying under Yakov Feltsman, another man with his own Wikipedia page -- Yuuri opens that in another tab and leaves it for later.

From then on, it’s practically just a list of piano competitions. This Viktor placed decently in a junior competition when he was 13, lay low for a few years, then came back with a vengeance at 16, and never looked back. Piano competitions are staggered, Yuuri learns, with certain contests happening every three or four years. Well, this Viktor took the top prize in five different, consecutive ones… which seems like it should be a lot bigger of a deal than one and a half sentences in a Wikipedia article, but that’s all there is about that.

The last competition this Viktor won, the Van Cliburn one in 2009, came with some sort of performance and career-management track for a couple of concert seasons. The next sentence goes on for entirely too long: a haphazard list of orchestras this Viktor performed with until 2011. Then there’s something about a CD, somewhere.

And that’s it. That’s the end. Absolutely nothing about the six years since then.

Yuuri frowns, reading the whole article again. It doesn’t take him very long, and the article itself doesn’t have a picture with it. No way, he tells himself. It has to be a coincidence, or Yuri was messing with his head. There’s no way.

He opens Youtube on another tab, and clicks back to the list of competitions again. He searches for the first senior competition: the International Chopin Piano Competition, in 2005. This Viktor would have been 16.

**VIKTOR NIKIFOROV – PIANO CONCERTO IN E MINOR OP 11 | Final stage of the Chopin Competition 2005**

That’s the first result, and the only one he needs. Yuuri feels his heart in his throat when he clicks on [the link](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=614oSsDS734&t=1764s), waits through several wide shots of a concert hall packed to the rafters with people, and finally sees the main subject walking across the stage.

He looks so young, and ecstatic to be there. His hair’s been pulled into a ponytail that ends at the base of his neck, and there’s no fringe yet, which reveals both of his bright blue eyes.

It’s him. This Viktor is his Victor.

Yuuri isn’t sure why he keeps watching, or what it is exactly that he’s hoping to see. Someone in the comments links to a review written by one of the judges who attended that day.

 

> _[...] Finally, a word about the eventual winner, Viktor Nikiforov -- although a word, a thousand, a million may not be enough. Nikiforov came into this competition nigh-untested: a fourth-place showing at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Xiamen, China three years ago was the first and last we’d heard of his name before today. So it is understandable, though perhaps foolish in hindsight, that expectations for the youngest of this year’s finalists were not that high._
> 
> _His initial entry was dramatic -- to be expected from the competitor who walked onto the stage sporting coattails and a bright golden necktie. Almost immediately, however, he toned it down, effortlessly drawing out the lyricism of the measures that followed. Nikiforov, while allowing himself a greater range in the first movement than any of the other finalists who chose this concerto, nonetheless displayed an instinctive sense of balance which, I am humble enough to admit, I thought him too young and too gregarious to possess. In the finale, he was vivacious and relentless; he was joy and light, and he set the orchestra on fire. The standing ovation was inevitable, for partway through the performance, you could already tell that the public wanted to dance._
> 
> _But for all of the excellence he exhibited in these two movements, it was in “Romance”, the second movement, where Nikiforov truly shone. One might even say that with the final notes of the movement -- and with two more competitors to go -- that first prize was already within his reach. Every note, every phrase of Nikiforov’s “Romance” was weighted, executed with love. Some of those in attendance bristled at the sheer audacity of adding an extra trill at the halfway mark, but even after accounting for that, no-one could deny that Nikiforov imbued in “Romance” a sense of liberation that his competitors sorely lacked._
> 
> _I was initially not without skepticism when considering Nikiforov, and before he had played a single note, I found myself wondering if perhaps he was too young, too untested for this competition. Looking back now, I am thrilled to have been so wrong. Chopin himself wrote of the second movement: “It is [...] calm and melancholy, giving the impression of someone looking gently towards a spot that calls to mind a thousand happy memories.” Nikiforov’s performance was one for the ages, one that will definitely spring to mind in a thousand memories -- and a thousand more._

 

The orchestra fades, as though giving way, at the 5-minute mark. Viktor starts playing immediately after, taking everything they offer, and more. Yuuri watches, transfixed, as the camera focuses on the pianist’s hands, and strong, assertive chords alternate with playful but rich melodic gems that he practically breezes through. There’s drama in the way the melody rises and glides, races and titters and slows, but in the shots that show the pianist’s face, Viktor is always wearing a soft, unshakeable smile.

It’s because he’s young, the comments all say. He’s ‘so good, but so young’.

That’s not it, Yuuri thinks as he watches Viktor’s fingers flying across the keys, reflected in glossy black against the piano. There’s something else…

He thinks he sees a glimpse of it when, in the short pause between the first and second movements, Viktor’s eyes leave the piano for the only time in the whole video. His eyes search for something away from the camera -- something in the audience, he thinks, judging from the angle of the shot.

Yuuri imagines he doesn’t find it, because the second movement breaks his heart.

“Viktor,” he whispers. The camera doesn’t show his face until halfway through the third movement, but he doesn’t need it to.

What happened?

Yuuri doesn’t get his answers in this video, even though he watches it to the end. He goes in order, loading up the next one -- because it only makes sense, and because what else is he going to do tonight? And because, most importantly: he needs to _understand_.

**Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 1 (Viktor Nikiforov, Leeds Sep 2006) [HD]**

 

> _[...] Viktor Nikiforov, aged 17, chose Brahms’s formidable First Concerto, equal parts a physical and cerebral challenge, which many a seasoned pianist has found troublesome. Almost certainly a mistake, we thought -- naïveté and inexperience on young Nikiforov’s part, or perhaps hubris on that of his mentor, the esteemed Yakov Feltsman?_
> 
> _Seems it was none of those; Nikiforov, who spent the long orchestral opening sitting patiently on the bench with a beatific smile, launched into the piano’s massive chordal introduction with such flourish and bravado that all of our initial misgivings immediately dissolved. As a musician, he is a revelation; an artist who plays with pure heart and imagination; fearless -- if not in the deviation with the high trills in the middle of the third movement (likely to become a signature move, since he did the same thing last year, much to Mr. Feltsman’s sure dismay), then simply in the way he was willing to risk everything with such a challenging piece. [...]_  

 

Viktor’s hair is long enough to braid this time, a simple one that ends just below the shoulders. The [piano entry](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOlc2PAiWUU) is quieter here than in the first video, but still makes his heart skip a beat. The comments section is a gush-fest, though a few complain about the ‘liberties’ with the trill -- Yuuri doesn’t really know what they mean -- but concede that for the rest of the performance, ‘Vitya’ is practically flawless. And if this had been its debut performance long ago, maybe Brahms would have gotten a bit less shit over this concerto than he did.

He wears the same tie as last year. He also wears the same smile, but it falters a bit, in a passage at around the 30-odd minute mark. The naked piano sounds raw, vulnerable, and Yuuri finds himself replaying that section a few times because there’s something about it that makes it sound… he can’t think of a better word than ‘wounded’.

Viktor’s all smiles when the performance ends, and he stands up to greet the conductor with a handshake and a hug. The first violinist gets the same treatment, and then Viktor faces the audience. Right before the camera pans away to a wide shot of the audience, cheering on their feet, he sees Viktor’s eyes flicker; the smile twitches, before widening into something that almost resembles happiness.

Yuuri doesn’t understand it -- not all of it, not yet. But he thinks he might be getting there.

 

* * *

  

Phichit, traitor that he is, takes his date to _Butcher’s Keys_. Yuuri knows this because he gets a text about it just before midnight, and then another one: _‘Vice asking abt u’._ He guesses he doesn’t have long before Phichit tells Viktor about the sprain.

He guesses right.

 

 **Victor**  

 

> I heard what happened! Are you ok???
> 
> Please please please let me know if there’s anything  
>  I can do?
> 
> You don’t have to forgive me, I just want to help..

 

This time, he doesn’t even wait, just locks the screen himself the moment he’s done reading. He still doesn’t know what to say.

Yuuri just feels numb, at this point. He’s numb from lying down with his ankle wrapped and raised on top of two pillows, and his laptop on another pillow on his lap for the past God-knows how many hours. But also: numb from everything he’s seen, everything he’s heard and read, and replayed and reread, about Victor -- no. Viktor.

Not ‘his Victor’. He hates the part of himself that ever thought to call him that.  

Yuuri rubs at his eyes. He feels like he’s been watching dozens of these videos, but really it’s only been four. But he wants to see it through to the end.

 **Van Cliburn 2009 - Viktor Nikiforov - Rachmaninoff No. 3**  

 

> _[...] There are no words. Today, 21-year-old Viktor Nikiforov made history by winning the top prize at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. This makes him the first pianist to win five consecutive international competitions in as many years._
> 
> _He did not make it easy for himself, choosing to go all-in with a performance of Rachmaninoff's notorious Piano Concerto No. 3. The piece can be described, in a word, as “relentless”: huge chords, meant to be played very quickly; numerous dense pockets of seemingly infinite notes; a solo that stretches the pianist to the very limits of his ability._
> 
> _Nikiforov did not shy away from any of these demands, attacking his 1st movement with energy and relish, as though never having known the meaning of restraint. He showed some semblance of it in the lush 2nd movement, albeit not completely -- the famous Nikiforov trills returned, deductions be damned it seemed. Finally, a storming finish at the end of the 3rd movement, one that would make Rachmaninoff proud._
> 
> _Years and decades from today, pianists looking to conquer this concerto will have Nikiforov’s winning Rach 3 to aspire to. [...]_

 

All of that is in the video description, and Yuuri reads it to the end before playing the video. This one starts off the same as the others: Viktor walks into a packed concert hall, and the audience breaks into polite applause as he appears. The braid ends at the small of his back this year. The camera focuses on his face after gives a short bow to his audience.

He’s not smiling anymore.

It [starts off mellow](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AmxZnlRa6Q), unlike his previous years’ choices. A sequence of four notes opens the piano’s part, and slowly evolves into something more complex. There’s something haunting about it, about the slow dips and turns, Viktor’s shoulders swaying along as he plays, letting the piano take him where it wants.

Then, at 1:40 in, something ignites -- notes upon notes upon notes, one after another; terrifying jumps across the the keys; heavy chords that look like they’re taking all of Viktor’s strength to do them justice. There’s something tortured lurking in the sequence that starts after 11 minutes, and the way the camera catches the members of the orchestra in the front row, watching Viktor as he attacks the piano alone, adds to the effect. Yuuri reads a few of the comments discussing the composer, and it seems to fit.

Is there a reason Viktor plays this so well?

14 minutes -- the melody slows; the orchestra sleeps. It’s quiet, and lonely. Viktor looks like he’s watching his hands, but he’s staring far away. 24 minutes in, the camera shows several sections of the audience, and only about half of them still have dry eyes.

Yuuri doesn’t think he sees Viktor actually look at them throughout the whole video.

40 minutes. The orchestra’s going wild. The piano silences them, chords bearing down, down, resolving into something rich and conclusive as he sets up the finale. Viktor throws himself into it, into every chord, his face a mask of silence and hard eyes and set jaw while behind him, the violins watch and sing. Yuuri’s heartbeat quickens as the melody builds, offering something higher and grander, always higher and grander, with every new measure.  

Some time past the 41st minute, the strings hit a plateau, high and heavenly. Viktor ducks his head, his arms shake -- he’s giving the piano everything he has. Yuuri can’t see the timestamp, because he’s got tears in his eyes.

_Why did you hide this?_

_Why did you have to lie?_

The hall erupts into applause. Viktor stays at the piano with his head bowed for a good minute -- he looks tired, like he’s catching his breath. The conductor gently taps his baton against the lid of the piano, and Viktor finally stands up to acknowledge him, acknowledge the orchestra.

Face the crowd. At the very end, at least, he manages a smile.

 

* * *

  

It’s a bit harder to keep track of what happened to Viktor after that, since he stopped competing that year. Yuuri finds a concert [performance](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBPq-BNiCr8) here and there, and an invitational [solo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpOtuoHL45Y) piece at the wedding of some European princess. Buried among the performance videos, there’s one of an interview with Viktor in the waiting area near what looks like an airport gate; the reporter asks him what his plans are after his engagements from the Van Cliburn win, and he answers something vague and cagey in a polite, cold voice -- a familiar voice, but one that Yuuri can’t reconcile with smooth, breathy tones singing ‘ _But Not For Me’_.

He moves away from videos and looks up articles instead. What he gets: conflicting reports, and speculation. Pages of articles in Russian, some drawing thousands and thousands of comments. One of the articles, from 2014, has an embedded video of someone chasing ‘Viktor Nikiforov’ after he exits a nightclub in Paris, only this Viktor Nikiforov has short hair, slicked back and dyed black, and a pair of glasses on his face. Despite all that, and despite the grainy video, Yuuri still recognizes him -- still recognizes his voice as he snaps out something in French, and a scuffle starts, before the video abruptly ends.

Yuuri finds the forum where the Viktor Nikiforov fan club lurks. It’s not huge, but its members are dedicated, some having joined as early as when he won the Chopin competition in 2005. There are no verified videos or photos of Viktor Nikiforov after his altercation with a tabloid photographer in Paris, but there are reports of sightings: credible ones marked with a special flair, sightings in various cities in Italy, then Paris, then London, Montreal, Toronto -- always heading west. True to form, the latest post is dated earlier this month: _“Viktor Nikiforov possibly in Detroit???!?!”_

And then: nothing.

Yuuri finally closes his laptop and puts it back on his desk, careful not to disturb his ankle too much. Concertos are long, and he watched several of them, among other things, so he’s not that surprised to see that the sun’s coming out. He hasn’t even noticed that Phichit didn’t come home. He checks his phone if there’s a message -- there is, telling him not to wait up. There’s no new message from Viktor.

This hurts.

Why does this hurt?

Because a gray afternoon in April, ‘ _My Foolish Heart_ ’ aptly playing in the background, still lives vividly in his memory. Because he still remembers the torrent of words, not unlike the rain that day -- the Grand Prix, his longing to win, 23 years’ worth of failure and insecurity and self-loathing that he’d kept locked away from even those closest to him -- coming out until he sat there exposed and he’d allowed it because… oh. That’s why.

It hurts because he put himself out there, further than he ever has in his life, and Viktor never meant to let him in at all.

Yuuri shuts off his bedside lamp and buries his face in his hands. His eyes prickle with unshed tears, but somehow, out of sheer stubbornness, he’s able to stop them from going any further. Bit by bit, the raw hurt and sadness shift into something else that feels closer to _anger_. Viktor had no right to those emotions, those secrets, when he spent this whole time hiding behind a fake name. Hell, Yuuri met the man months ago and only learned the whole truth about him in the past 12 hours.

Knowing that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

But despite himself, he thinks of the man who sang to him in his apartment, who met his gaze through the glass of the recording studio and smiled like they shared something no-one else would. He thinks of Viktor’s sad eyes, the way he once clung to Yuuri as though he couldn’t stand to let him go. He remembers, of all things, that stupid wink of his, the way his eyes would light up before exclaiming _‘vkusno!’_ , his laugh, and his smile. He remembers: _‘You’re the one who’s too kind to me.’_ And: ‘ _Please don’t leave me again._ ’

Did he -- ?

Something squeezes at Yuuri’s chest like a vise. Does he…?

 _No_ , comes the reply, harsh and cold -- he’s not sure from where, exactly. He’s not sure if it’s just the anger talking, but it doesn’t take much for it to settle: no. In spite of everything that happened, everything else in him that might feel and want and scream otherwise: no.

You can’t love someone if you don’t trust them.

You can’t love them if you don’t even know them.

It’s about time he stopped this.

The sun’s halfway to the sky when he makes his decision. It shouldn’t be too hard to avoid Viktor from now on, should it? He’s the one who’s always gone out of his way to the pianist’s apartment, or to the bar; stopping those, and blocking his number, will be the cleanest way to do it.

He squashes down the thought that immediately bubbles to the surface of his mind: _but how will Viktor feel?_ That doesn’t matter anymore, he tells himself, swallowing back the pain when he does.   

It doesn’t make him feel any less wounded, but this way, he feels like it’ll at least stop the bleeding.

 

* * *

 

He makes it to Day 5 when Viktor shows up, in the flesh, standing outside of his dorm room carrying a plastic bag. “Hey.”

Yuuri stares. It’s late, and he looks like he’s dressed for work -- the rolled-up sleeves, the vest, the bowtie hanging open around his collar. The bags around his eyes are even more pronounced than usual -- that, or the hallway lighting makes it look like they are. Yuuri doesn’t know.

He has to remind himself it’s no longer his privilege to know.

“Uh, I didn’t… God, this must look so creepy, I swear I wasn’t thinking.” Viktor rubs at his face with a wince. “I got directions to your building from Leo… I thought they’d stop me down at the front desk, but they just let me keep going, so…”

None of that makes any sense; how would Leo even know where he lives? Yuuri feels so tired, all of a sudden. “Viktor, why are you here?”

The words hurt with the way they come out, even to Yuuri. He wishes he could take them back, but he stops short of saying that out loud.

He’s not sure if Viktor even tried to hide the grimace at that. If he did, it was a terrible attempt. “I wanted to make sure you’re alright,” he says quietly.

Yuuri can’t do this anymore. “I’m fine. Thank you.” He lets out a heavy sigh. He’s not even angry, he’s just… he doesn’t even know _what_ he’s feeling right now. “How -- how are you?”

Viktor smiles, and instead of answering, starts pulling things out of the bag to show him. Figures.  “I brought you some stuff. This is… either a heating pack or an ice pack, I don’t know which one is better for a sprain. You throw it in the microwave or the freezer beforehand, depending on what you want… though, you probably already knew that.” He puts it back, and takes out a few small bottles that rattle when he shakes them. “Painkillers… I didn’t know if you were allergic to anything, so I got you a few different kinds. And then this little guy was sitting in a pile near the checkout line,” he chuckles fondly, “so I picked him up too.”

The tiny stuffed dog could fit in Yuuri’s hand. It looks like a poodle, a black one -- he reaches out to touch its fur, and it’s a raggedy little thing, rough but somehow adorable all the same.

He tries to smile. It probably doesn’t look like it, because Viktor says, “You don’t have to take any of it.”

“No, I… thank you. This is very thoughtful.” Yuuri takes the bag from him, but he keeps the dog in his hand. “Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome.”

And this is the part where Viktor walks away, isn’t it? This is the part where Viktor leaves, because he has a job to get to, and because Yuuri has said he was fine, and that’s the end goal of checking up on someone with a sprain.

This is the part where Viktor turns around, walks away, and makes this easier for both of them.

“Yuuri, I… just want to apologize, again.” Yuuri’s hopes of an uncomplicated parting are ground to dust. “I regret the way I acted the last time we saw each other.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“No, I _do_. It wasn’t fair to you, or to Yura -- ”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he says again, louder this time. Viktor isn’t getting it, and Yuuri knows deep down that he can end this quickly himself -- but he can’t bring himself to be unkind, not when Viktor looks like he’s barely holding himself together.

But he can’t be kind either, because if Viktor wanted that, wanted to _deserve_ that from him, then he wouldn’t have lied.

Right?

“I… I gave all of my vodka to Georgi. After you left.” He looks so awkward, standing out in the hallway like he’s half-ready to bolt, but also anchored in place. “I know it’s an empty gesture, I can always get more… though I haven’t, actually. I’m also not sure why.” Viktor pauses, as though considering that. Then he sucks in a shaky breath and amends, “No, that’s a lie. It’s you.”

His heart races. Don’t ask. It will only hurt more. Don’t ask. “W-what do you mean by that?” _Idiot!_

“Whenever I…” Viktor makes some vague hand gesture instead of saying the word, “it helped, to… take the edges off, I guess? If that makes any sense. I’m not proud of this. When the world was always just a little bit fuzzy around the edges, it was easier to deal. With everything. But then you…”

The words die, and his lower lip quivers. He bites it back and furiously shakes his head, so that by the time Yuuri can focus on his face again, he’s already smiling.

“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be staying in this city, Yuuri. But now that I’ve met you, I know that I don’t want the time that I have left here to be fuzzy and forgettable.”

 _Stop_ , he wants to beg. _Stop talking, if that’s all you’re going to say._ Less than a week ago, he might have been ecstatic to hear those words, but now they just feel… not enough. Not anymore.

But he doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants. It’s too late for that anyway -- hasn’t he decided already? What would he even say? _Let me in?_ Let me in, meet me halfway, or…

He’s weak. He’s weak because all it took was a single visit, a single look at Viktor’s face, and he wants to take it all back if only Viktor would just. Stop. _Hiding_.

“I don’t know why I felt the need to tell you all of that, just now.” Viktor laughs.

These are the words that Yuuri doesn’t say: _You don’t need a reason. You never did. Just tell me. Tell me everything._

“I’m not expecting anything. Just… please know, that I’m trying?”

_Let me in._

Yuuri doesn’t hear Viktor say good night. He sees his lips moving, and he reads the words, but he doesn’t hear them. He sees Viktor turning from him, and the way he lets his guard down a split-second too early, his smile fading at the last second before his face is out of sight.

He stares at the back of Viktor’s head. Three steps into the hallway, four, five… and Yuuri can’t chase him anymore, not with this sprain, not from here. And maybe that’s why -- it’s easier to be brave when you can’t really do anything. Or when you’re so, so tired.

_Let me in, or let’s end this._

“Try a little harder,” he forces out, past the lump in his throat and the taste of all those words unsaid, “Viktor Nikiforov.”

The words stop the pianist in his tracks.

Yuuri’s mind actually has the nerve to conjure up hope, for a second -- maybe Yuri was wrong. Maybe everything he read and watched and listened to over the past few days was wrong, and when that becomes too ridiculous to stomach, it’s replaced with something else: _maybe, somehow, it’ll be okay._

But Viktor stuffs his hands into his pockets, a heavy sigh leaving him and his shoulders hunched, deflated. When he glances back, it’s with a horrible, heartbreaking attempt at a smile, which makes him look like he’s betraying the entire world.

“Looks like I’m already out of time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> … I am so sorry (/ω＼)
> 
> Anyway, um. MUSIC!  
> \- Straight from canon, Yuri Plisetsky’s free skate song, [Allegro Appassionato in B minor](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX7EY_CDkeA)  
> \- Chopin: [Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=614oSsDS734&t=1764s), performed by Seong-Jin Cho  
> \- Brahms: [Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOlc2PAiWUU), performed by Hélène Grimaud  
> \- Rachmaninoff: [Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AmxZnlRa6Q), performed by Olga Kern  
> \- Chopin: [Andante spianato et grande polonaise brillante in E-flat major, Op. 22](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBPq-BNiCr8), performed by Evgeny Kissin  
> \- Liszt: [Liebestraum No. 3](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpOtuoHL45Y), performed by Josef Bulva
> 
> So I have heard all of your feedback about a playlist for this fic, and I guess it’s a go! It’s… not ready yet though, sorry. I’m targeting the end of chapter 6! (But, a question: now that it’s an even mix of jazz and classical, do you guys want it split up into those two genres? Or just ALL THE MUSIC ALL OF IT in one playlist?)
> 
> Lastly, special thanks go out to @Pigfarts23 for providing me with classical music recs, and for being kind enough to not-mock me while I whined endlessly about writing about music.


	6. Farewell and Goodbye

“So it’s true, then.” That should have been a question, Yuuri realizes, a few seconds too late. But at this point, really, what difference does it make?

He doesn’t get an answer, anyway. “Was it Yura who told you, or Georgi?” The pianist’s voice wavers towards the end, and something flickers in his eyes. It’s gone when he shakes his head, and he sets his jaw.  “Actually, don’t answer that. It’s fine.”

Here they go again, having two different conversations. Yuuri is in no mood for this right now. “All this time, I… I had no idea who you were.”

It hurts a lot more to speak those words, he finds, than to just let them linger and fester in his head, like they’ve been doing for the past five days. It feels like something’s been ripped from him, and all that’s left, in spite of everything, is dread. Dread, because a part of him still wishes, against all reason, that Viktor will at least deny it.

“I gave you a false name.” Viktor stares at his shoes. “I’m sorry for that.”

Yuuri balls his hands into fists at his side. “When were you planning on telling me?”

Viktor’s silence damns him.

“Never?” Yuuri nearly chokes on the word. “You -- you would’ve just strung me along, until I got blindsided. Is that it?”

“No, of course not! I just… I...” Viktor presses his lips together. A wordless sigh slips out through his nose. “I’m not very good with words. I guess I thought it wouldn’t matter.”

“Wouldn’t matter?” he echoes, incredulous.

“I hoped it wouldn’t,” Viktor amends, his voice barely above a whisper. “I hoped for a lot of things, actually. I should stop doing that.”

Yuuri should, too. He should know that this is the best he could have wished for: confirmation that everything he learned was true, and that everything out of Viktor’s mouth before today might as well have been a lie, and that getting close was a mistake. It was a mistake he never should have made in the first place, but he was weak and stupid and maybe, maybe on some level he deserves this. For trying. For fooling himself into believing that someone as vibrant and talented and beautiful as Viktor could ever have anything to do with him that wasn’t born out of artifice. Or fantasy.

He’s not sure why he’s even still standing here. He’s not sure why he can’t get his legs to move.

“I was going to tell you, for what it’s worth.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. When I was ready.”

“So, never?” A wounded look flashes across Viktor’s face at that, and threatens to undo him. But Yuuri’s already come out this far, and there’s nowhere else to go. “I opened myself up to you. I don’t know if it showed, but you… you don’t know how much that meant. How much it took from me.” He swallows hard. “You never responded.”

“I told you, I’m not very good with words.”

What the hell is that even supposed to mean? “You could have stopped me. You could have spared us both, so that at least we wouldn’t have to be having this conversation right now.” The words pour out of him in a rush that leaves him trembling. His fists tighten. He can’t seem to stop. “That’s where this was going in the end, right? How long does it last, usually? Until… until you run away to some other city, and forget all about everyone here?” Oh God -- he really can’t stop, why can’t he stop -- ? “You managed two years in Paris, I think. But everywhere else was less than eight months, right? How long were you planning to stay in Detroit?” Stop. _Stop._ “‘Out of time’, you said, was it? I-if I knew I had an expiry date, I never would’ve tried!”

Finally the torrent ends, and it’s only because he remembers that he needs to breathe. The rush of oxygen, from greedy, staggered gulps of air that end up about as graceful as any part of this damn conversation has been so far, doesn’t clear his head completely. But it does dam up the words.

The thing with words though -- and maybe that’s why it hurt to even start this, and why Yuuri _should have taken a hint_ right then and there -- is that once they’re out, you really have no control over where they go. Or what they cut along the way.

“...Wow. Is that really what you think of me?”

 _No,_ he realizes. He expected that it would be, and maybe after these past few days when he cut himself off from Viktor (and for what, exactly -- spare him the hurt, spare his pride?) he was starting to think that. Viktor on paper is a living legend who flits from one city to another and is forever untouchable, out of Yuuri’s league, but Viktor -- Vice from the bar, Victor from the drugstore note -- he's lovely and simple and sometimes silly, sometimes sad. And he’s standing in front of him right now like Yuuri’s just stabbed him, and the look on his face makes Yuuri want to take everything back.

He could do that. Take it all back. But instead what he hears himself saying is, “Tell me I’m wrong.”

He doesn’t say: _please_. Just a few words, and he’ll apologize, again and again if he has to -- he can already feel the words building in the back of his throat. Just a few words is all he needs, something -- anything, just to assure him that despite everything else, Viktor did feel it too, that he wasn’t just going to leave from the start. That this, _at least this_ if nothing else, was real.

“How can you say something like that? Like you’re trying to shatter my heart.” Viktor stuffs his hands into his pockets, a strained little laugh escaping from his lips. He ducks his head. “I had no idea you had it in you. To be so cruel.”

The words hurt him more than they have any right to. They don’t sting, but they leave an ache that lingers, and feels a lot like… “Viktor, I didn’t mean -- ”

“I know.” It comes out clipped, harsh against the unforgiving walls of the narrow corridor. This is when Yuuri starts to think that he might have made a mistake, somewhere along the line, because he keeps hearing those two words in his head, his brain trying and failing to make any sense of them in the context that it’s already chosen. If Viktor knows, then why is he still here?

The only answer that makes sense feels like lead settling in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m sorry.” Yuuri says the words anyway, and his pride takes the hit, but he doesn’t even feel it anymore. This is wrong, all of this is wrong, and he desperately needs to fix it. Just like when he was standing in Viktor’s apartment, watching him come undone after Yuri left, he doesn’t know how. “I just wish you’d told me.”

“What would it have changed?!”

Later, he might remember that this is the first time he’s heard Viktor yell. Now, all he’ll remember of this moment is standing here, and finding it harder to breathe with every passing second that he can’t think of a single damn answer to that.

Because he can’t lie. _Nothing_ , is what sits on the tip of his tongue, and it tastes like despair. There’s nothing. The man he fell in love with wasn’t Viktor the hero, the five-time champion from St. Petersburg who signed his music with superfluous little trills because he could, and who brought every concert hall he graced to a mess of praise and tears. The man he fell in love with…

Yuuri’s throat tightens; he doesn’t dare let himself finish that thought.

The realization makes him feel so, incredibly stupid when it fully sinks in. Did it really take him so long to come to it? And is there even any use to it now, now that Viktor won’t even look at him anymore, now that he’s screwed everything up and it’s probably already too late?

No. He’s been so stupid. So stupid, so cruel.

He really doesn’t know anything at all.

“These past few months with you,” Viktor finally breaks the silence again, but barely – Yuuri can hardly even hear him, “were among the happiest I’ve had in a long time. Thank you, for that. For everything.”

Now, now he’s crying. Yuuri feels it in his chest and in his throat before he can even register the wetness on his cheeks and the burn in his eyes. It’s impossible to believe that, as early as an hour ago, he actually thought that this was what he wanted. Now that he’s getting it, it just feels like being gutted.

Which is just as well. He brought this on himself, didn’t he? For being so terribly stupid. “Viktor?”

“I’m going to be late for the first set. Take care of yourself, yeah?“ Viktor smiles at him in what looks like it might be the very last time. “ _Do svidanya_.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri reverts to Massenet’s _Méditation_ for his free program, because it’s not like he has any other choice. Viktor’s half-finished composition isn’t going to cut it, and even if it were longer, he can’t imagine himself skating to it anymore.

Even thinking about the choreography is impossible. Those feelings and ideas that were born in Viktor’s mind, that were reborn in his music, and then again in Yuuri’s ill-fated attempts to interpret them through his skating -- translated twice over, with something huge lost both times. Trying to revisit that now feels like a violation.

That’s what it is though, right? Now that Viktor hates him?

So he abandons it.

Minako-sensei complains about this development when she finds out, half about the wasted work, and half about how she knows there’s something Yuuri’s not telling her. She’s unhappier about that second part, he thinks. He doesn’t do anything about it.

Maybe it’s for the best, he thinks as he glides across the ice. His limbs move entirely from muscle memory, every step and turn of last year’s program still sketched in deep strokes in a corner of his mind. Despite the fact that all he wants to do right now is _not_ think, this is still easier than the alternative.

“You’re sure about this, Yuuri?”

He’s surprised to find himself panting after only three passes of his quad-toe triple-toe combination. “Am I doing something wrong?”

“No, it’s very solid. Very clean.” Celestino’s eyebrows look like they’re drawn together in a permanent frown. “Just… it seems a bit like a regression, no?”

Yuuri skates over to the boards where his coach stands. He bypasses the offered towel and takes a swig from the water bottle there instead. It’s mostly to buy himself time to think about what to say.

“I wasn’t able to take this program to its full potential last season.” He wipes sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “There’s a couple of changes I want to make, too. I want to move some jumps around.”

“For the points?” Celestino mulls it over. “The single quad toe can be moved to the second half. The lunge can come with it too. Do you want to try?”

Yuuri nods. “If that’s alright.”

“I told you before, I’m giving you more of the reins with your programs this year. I trust your judgment. I just want to be sure that you’re sure.”

“I am.” Yuuri can still feel the man’s wary eyes on him, so he puts down the water bottle and turns back to the ice. “Besides, this song’s one of your favorites, right?”

He can’t remember if the music’s always been this sad. The violin sounds like it’s weeping, and even the crescendo is something mournful. Maybe it’s all in his head.

Slow notes with the spin towards the finale sing: _I didn’t know it would hurt this much._ The last two, dissonant, then high and keening reply: _But it’s better this way._

It’s better this way. It doesn’t matter how wretched his heart is, and how he’s always on the verge of tears. He’ll channel it all into his skating, if only so that the greatest fuck-up he’s ever made in his life might, in the end, at least yield _some_ good.

 

* * *

 

> **Victor**
> 
> I’m so sorry.      (!)  
>  **Not Delivered**

 

* * *

 

If speed-toggling one’s phone in and out of airplane mode was a valuable athletic skill, Yuuri might’ve at least landed on the podium by now. But it’s not.

What _is_ : jumping, among other things, and actually landing said jumps. This, he’s not so good at, he’s reminded as he over-rotates on his fifth attempt in a row. He stops fighting it and lets the momentum take him where it wants, until he glides to a stop in the middle of the ice. He hunches down, hands gripping his knees.

His ankle feels stiff. He’s exhausted.

He’s still fighting the urge to cry.

“What the hell was that?” Someone’s light on their feet; Yuuri doesn’t hear the footsteps until they’re practically at the boards. “Please tell me that wasn’t supposed to be a quad sal.”

He raises his head, squinting at the approaching figure. It’s almost midnight. Even Celestino left half an hour ago, though not before a sternly-worded warning to Yuuri _not_ to practice any more jumps for the day. Well. “Who let you in here?”

Yuri is either too busy lacing his skates to answer that question, or deliberately ignoring it. It’s probably the latter. “Do it again.”

“What?”

“The jump, do it again.” Yuri rolls his eyes when he’s met with just a blank stare. “Look, I’m not going to make fun of you -- well, okay, no promises. I just want to see.”

Yuuri’s not sure why he decides to humor him, but he does. It might have something to do with the fact that continuing the argument seems like it would take more effort than actually trying the jump. He flubs it again anyway, actually falling this time. But he’s paying enough attention so that he doesn’t sprain anything now. That’s something.

“You really suck, piggy.” Or it’s not. He hears the scrape of metal against the ice, and before he knows it, a pair of black skates stops alarmingly close to his head. He glances up, and Yuri makes sure he’s looking before skating towards the center of the rink. “Watch me, okay?”

If someone told Yuuri at the Grand Prix Final that Yuri Plisetsky would be teaching him how to do a quadruple salchow, less than a year after yelling _‘loser!’_ at him in a public bathroom, he wouldn’t have known what part of that sentence to tackle first. Yet here he is, on the ice, having shucked off his Team Russia jacket and pulled his hair back into a ponytail, doing just that. He shows Yuuri how to do it all the way from a 3-turn, how to start the jump by swinging his leg forward with absolutely no hesitation. How to swing his free leg and actually make it count. How to check the rotation when he lands, instead of panicking and landing on anything but his skate.

Near the end of their impromptu session, Yuuri… still hasn’t quite gotten it, but he’s a lot closer. He wobbles a little bit, and sometimes two-foots it on his worst tries, but at least he doesn’t fall anymore. That’s really the point where it starts to sink in, that this is actually happening.

He has no idea _why_ any of this is happening, but he takes it. He also makes sure to thank Yuri for it, multiple times, even after he’s told to ‘stop being so fucking sappy’.

“Did you get your music for your Free Skate?” he asks when they’re both sitting on the bench near the boards, winding down for the night. ‘Night’ is actually closer to 2 a.m. at this point, and Yuuri will probably have to face some consequences for that the next time he sees Celestino. It won’t be his first time.

“Yeah.” Yuri’s really fond of animal print, it seems -- his trainers have got a leopard spot pattern all over them.

“Um.” Yuuri fiddles with the drawstrings of his sweater. “How was it?”

“Fine.”

‘Fine’. Yuuri wonders what he means by that. He’s got no doubts that Viktor delivered a stellar performance. It’s not just because of the pianist’s talent, which Yuuri knows he has in spades -- he just can’t imagine Yuri settling for anything less than perfection, whatever that is to him. Not without a lot of yelling, anyway.  

“Just ask me what you really want to ask me already, piggy.”

Yuuri blinks, startled. “Huh?”

“I can feel you staring, it’s creepy.” Yuri blows out a sigh, disturbing a few strands of his now-unbound hair that have fallen over his eyes. “He’s okay, I think. Looked like he needed sleep.”

“He has a night shift at a jazz bar.”

“I know, I could smell it on him. Liquor and cigarettes.” He sticks his tongue out, making an exaggerated gagging noise. Yuuri remembers all of a sudden how _young_ he is. “But he brought his dog, for whatever reason.”

“Hmmm.” Yuri’s coach must have really been keen on Viktor performing his free skate song, to let him bring Makkachin along. “So you’re going back to Russia, then?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a stupid-early flight the day after tomorrow.”

He shouldn’t ask. But Yuuri is starting to realize that when it comes to Viktor Nikiforov, his learning curve is just a stupid vertical line. “Is… is Viktor going with you?”

Yuri looks at him like _where the hell did that even come from?_ “Pretty sure there’s a bigger chance of hell actually freezing over than Viktor willingly going home.”

“But I thought -- ”

“I don’t really get it,” he continues, as though he didn’t even hear Yuuri, “but whatever. I’ve stopped trying to. He’s always been kind of into that whole ‘tortured artist’ thing. When he was still on his concert tour I thought it was just for the publicity, but…”

He trails off with a shrug. Yuuri recalls the sight of Viktor at the piano that day, after Yuri had left, and thinks that publicity definitely has nothing to do with it.

“N-not that I care,” Yuri adds quickly. “He’s a grown-ass man, whatever he does with his life is up to him.” He finally finishes putting on his shoes and looks up. His eyes settle on a banner for some law firm that takes up entirely too much space on the boards, and he scowls. “I asked him, anyway. He said he can’t go back to Russia ‘til he ‘works through some stuff’.” He actually makes the air quotes with his fingers. “He can take care of himself.”

“You’re right.” Of course. Viktor survived just fine before Yuuri entered his life, and all Yuuri did in the end was cause him pain.

Viktor will be just fine without him. After him.

Yuri finally gets up. “Anyway. The next time I see you, you better _not_ have a sorry-ass quad sal,” he growls, pointing a threatening finger right between Yuuri’s eyes, “or I swear I’m literally going to crash your program so I can kick you in the face.”

Yuuri laughs, actually laughs at that, because now that he’s spent more than 30 seconds with him, Yuri’s really not that scary. The image of his livid face is more comical than anything when it pops into his head, and it’s funnier than the absurd idea of him barging onto the ice because Yuuri screwed up a salchow. Or the horror of being kicked in the face with a skate. “Alright, Yuri.”

“I mean it, piggy!”

“Alright.”

 

* * *

 

“The Sticky Splinters are breaking up!”

Phichit’s set a terrible precedent since they first became roommates, years ago. Barring exceptional cases -- like when Yuuri’s sick in bed, or when he’s sneaking in at some indecent hour, or that one time in 2013 when it was both of those things -- every entrance into their room comes with either the worst joke he’s seen on Reddit that day, or some grand announcement that overrides his deep-seated need to share the misery of awful humor.

It’s telling that Yuuri finds himself waiting for a punchline, until his mind finally catches up and processes each of those words in turn. “What?”

“The Sticky Splinters! That jazz band that plays at _Butcher’s Keys_? The one with the really pretty bassist? Their leader’s got killer hair? And Piano Man! With the -- ”

“Talented fingers, don’t remind me,” he says flatly. Either way, this is certainly news to him. “How do you know this?”

“Firsthand information. I heard it from their drummer.”

Yuuri frowns. “You know Leo?”

“Yeah, he’s in my PSY1020 class.” Phichit tosses his keys into the bowl of mints and loose change that he and Yuuri keep on top of the mini-fridge by the door. “ _You_ know Leo? Oh wait, never mind -- of course you do. Anyway, yeah! There’s no official announcement yet, but he said it’s probably happening. Like, 70% chance.”

Yuuri thinks at first that that’s not really that high. Then he remembers that it’s bigger than 50%, so maybe it is. “Did he say why?”

“Vice might be leaving.”

This is not supposed to surprise him, he tells himself. It’s _not_ , and yet hearing it still feels a bit like getting the air punched out of his lungs.

A couple of weeks have passed since he and Viktor last exchanged any words, and they were the ones that took place in the hallway and ended everything. Even then, Viktor was already dropping some hints that this was coming. Yuuri knew about it anyway, having read the pattern of the pianist’s life sketched out by forum posts auto-translated from a Russian website. And then, in a horribly-executed attempt at conveying why he was upset, and in choosing his pride instead of his heart, Yuuri took that knowledge and threw it all in Viktor’s face.

“Yuuri?”

He’s supposed to be saying something. “O-oh.” He didn’t miss the questioning undercurrent in Phichit’s tone. He’s not clear on how much Phichit knows about Viktor, besides the fact that he’s ‘Piano Man from the bar’ who turned into ‘Piano Man who leaves love notes in people’s jeans’, and that Yuuri once spectacularly humiliated himself trying to talk to him. “Did he say when?”

Phichit shakes his head. “Just that Vice was talking about doing it.” He squints, and crosses the full four strides to Yuuri’s side of the room to peer closely at him. “You should know more though, right? Is it true?”

“Ah, I don’t know…” Yuuri glues his eyes to his laptop screen, where it’s open to an email from the JSF that he hasn’t been reading for the past hour. “We haven’t really been…”

He trails off. ‘Talking’ seems like a shallow way to end that sentence, even though it’s not untrue. It’s more than that -- it’s shared headphones and snuggling on the couch with Makkachin’s fur and Viktor’s perpetually cold feet, and a hundred or so other little things that he shouldn’t have taken for granted. They don’t have any of that anymore.

“Let’s go see them tonight!”

Phichit’s declaration jerks Yuuri out of his moping. “Huh??”

“We should go see them! If what Leo says is true, then they could split whenever. Who knows if it’s six months from now or _tomorrow_?”

“No way.” Yuuri shakes his head emphatically. “You’re being ridiculous. We -- we both have to be on the ice at eight!”

“We’re not staying ‘til closing. I was just thinking we’d hang out for a few songs, maybe get a couple sweet, fruity drinks that Celestino won’t ever find out about.” He laughs. “Come on, Yuuri, they performed your short program music. You need to at least say goodbye!”

Phichit definitely knows. He has to, otherwise he wouldn’t be trying so hard. Yuuri’s still not too clear on why, but he wouldn’t put it past Phichit to just ‘want everyone to be happy’.

He does have a point, though; his music was performed by the full trio, and if they do end up breaking up in the end, then… “You think I owe it to them, huh.” The _band_ , he reiterates to himself. Not Viktor.

“Duh.” Phichit looks entirely too pleased with himself as he pushes away from Yuuri’s bed. “We’ll be out before 11, promise.”

Why does this still feel like a terrible idea for some reason? Yuuri sighs, and stares at the tiny stuffed poodle sitting on the base of his desk lamp. He hasn’t thought of a name for it yet, but in the past weeks he’s come really close to going with ‘Makkachin’. He misses her. He misses…  

No. He doesn’t get to miss Viktor. Not after what he did to him.

Still, he doesn’t want his last memory of Viktor to be the sight of him walking away through a wall of unshed tears.

So it’ll be just like Phichit said: a chance to say goodbye, break it off clean. He’s not going to hope for anything more than that. “Okay.” He sets aside his laptop, and finally gets up. “Okay, I’m game. Let’s go -- ”

Phichit interrupts him by making a sound that resembles a foghorn. He then pushes Yuuri back down, so that he lands awkwardly in a sitting position back on his bed. “You’re not considering going like that, are you?”

What? Yuuri glances down at his T-shirt and jeans. “Um, I was going to put on a sweater?”

“Nope!” Phichit walks around Yuuri’s bed and makes his way to his closet. He flings open the doors, and immediately begins rummaging. “Think about it. What if they really do break up tomorrow? We need to get a commemorative photo with them tonight to be sure!”

Yuuri watches him, growing steadily confused as he starts pulling shirts out. “W-what are you talking about?”

Phichit grins.

 

* * *

 

“That was _[Mack the Knife](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEllHMWkXEU)_ _,_ one of my father’s favorites. It’s a good thing he doesn’t speak much English, because I feel he’d like it a lot less if he understood the lyrics.” Georgi smiles into the mic as Leo bangs out a rimshot against the chuckles from the audience. “For those of you just joining us -- welcome, all. We’re the Sticky Splinters, and we’re happy to make some music for you tonight.”

The bar is filled with the sound of warm applause. Phichit cups his hands around his mouth and cheers for the band, then waves at Leo, before turning to Yuuri. “Hey, that’s Vice, right? He looks different tonight.”

Yuuri doesn’t look. “Different?”

“Yeah. Like he’s tired, or something.” Phichit tilts his head, thoughtful. “Dapper as hell though.”

He really is, Yuuri thinks as he allows himself a moment of weakness, stealing a glance. Viktor’s sporting more muted colors tonight, with a black blazer over a charcoal-gray cardigan, the sleeves of both haphazardly bunched up at his elbows, like he’s trying to blend in with the backdrop. It doesn’t work, not really, because his hair still greedily catches all of the light that it can, and his fair skin doesn’t help either.

Also -- he’s still so, maddeningly handsome. “You could probably give him a run for his money if you tried,” he teases lightly.

“Yeah?” Phichit likes that a lot, because in the next second he’s yanking Yuuri closer, and his phone’s already at arm’s length. Yuuri barely has time to throw on something that feels like it might be a smile, before the camera takes Phichit’s first selfie of the night: the two of them standing in front of the chalkboard announcing the bar’s specials and musical guests. Phichit’s in raw denim and an actual tweed jacket, because this is important ‘for the commemorative photo, _Yuuri_ ’, and the photo catches him mid-wink with one arm slung over Yuuri’s shoulder. In just a few seconds, it’s up on Instagram. “I’ll wait ‘til the first intermission. Think they’d be up for a selfie then?”

Yuuri shrugs. “As long as you’re polite, I don’t think they’ll say no.” Which means he has between now and first intermission to think of a way to make himself scarce when it happens, just to avoid all the unnecessary awkwardness. “I’m going to get a drink,” he announces. “Want anything?”

“Hmmm.” Phichit taps a finger thoughtfully against his cheek, still appraising their selfie. “I’m thinking iced tea -- of the Long Island variety, but maybe not right away. Ah, I dunno, surprise me?”

“Okay.”

Today’s special is called a ‘Moscow mule’, which Yuuri thinks might be a message from the universe, except he doesn’t know what to make of it. He orders two, anyway. The bartender nods, gives him a second glance, and says something about Bill Evans, which makes him bite back a groan. A month ago he might not have even known who that was, but he still remembers the videos from Viktor’s laptop, so he gets it -- sort of.

He resists the urge to run his hands through his slicked-back hair, lest he earn Phichit’s wrath. He chose something a bit less flashy than his roommate’s outfit: dark slacks, a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up three-quarters of the way, and a baby blue tie that he thinks he’s worn to pretty much every tie-worthy event in recent memory. There’s always the option to take off his glasses, he supposes, but he won’t be able to make out the stage that way. So he leaves them on.

Their drinks come in copper mugs and with a lot of ice, which Phichit finds extremely entertaining. He’s in the middle of staging their drinks for an Instagram shot when Yuuri’s gaze wanders across the bar. It stops when the music stops, which is also when Yuuri realizes -- and yes, all right universe, he thinks he gets it now -- that he’s staring into a very familiar pair of blue eyes.

A moment passes.

And then it’s gone, and Viktor looks away as the Sticky Splinters prepare for a new song.

Yuuri doesn’t drink yet, but there’s a slightly bitter taste when he swallows. Really, though, he expected this… or if he didn’t, well, he should have. In another life Viktor might have had him thrown out of the bar, and he’d have every right to. Maybe it wouldn’t even make a difference, in the end.

Stop. _It doesn’t have to be about you._ They’re just here to say goodbye, he reminds himself. Nothing more.

Viktor starts the next song with a series of [slow, tentative chords](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXk1LBvIqU), the cadence reminding him of someone rapping against a door. Mila takes over at the end of the line -- Yuuri’s not sure if she was supposed to, or if she’s ad libbing it, but Viktor doesn’t seem upset or surprised. He puts some more weight in his hands in the measures that follow, if only to match the energy that the bass injected into the song, but no more.

What is he doing?

Mila does carry the melody for this first part, as it turns out. Leo’s a soft, whispering pulse in the background, and Viktor’s a dry pair of chords at the end of every line: _soooo, what_? his piano says each time. That’s what Phichit informs him that Georgi said the title of this song is, but Yuuri can’t _not_ hear it now -- not when Viktor’s staring at him, or at least in his direction, through the spaces in the fringe of his hair.

One of Viktor’s online fangirls mentioned something about his talent of being able to make his piano ‘sing’. Yuuri appreciates that, in an abstract sense. But tonight, he can hear his own voice, stammering and jittery, in the thrum of the bassline; Viktor’s replies, or what he imagines them to be, ring cool and unchanging in the piano’s answers.

_You probably didn’t want to see me._

_(So what?)_

_I’m not sure this was a good idea._

_(So what?)_

_But I just came to say goodbye._

_(So what?)_

_And I guess to see if you’re okay?_

_(So what?)_

Georgi’s trumpet enters the song, all breathy notes full of swagger and heft. Yuuri lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, blowing out a long sigh.

“You’re not gonna drink?” Phichit asks through his teeth, which are clamped over his straw.

He’s pointing at Yuuri’s untouched mug. “Later,” he answers, distracted. “Is it good?”

“Really good. I’m about five minutes away from getting us another round, but you haven’t even started yours.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll catch up.”

“Hey, no pressure!”

At some point, when there’s a part of the song that shifts its melody back to the bass, Viktor beckons Georgi over and whispers something in his ear. Georgi raises his head to peer at the crowd, and Yuuri wonders if he's imagining it, or if he's really looking in their direction.

No -- there are other tables in his line of sight, Yuuri tells himself. He shouldn't be so conceited.

It doesn't help. He squirms in his seat, and tugs at his collar because is it stuffy in here, all of a sudden? Phichit doesn't look uncomfortable, but then again Phichit is drinking. Yuuri stares at his own drink, but his throat feels so tight that he can barely get air in. Calm down, he begs himself. What is it?

Georgi rejoins the song. The notes of the trumpet come fast, too fast, and Yuuri finds that some of them overlap with his heartbeat. All this time, Viktor stares at the piano, and from here Yuuri can't read the set of his mouth, or the furrow of his brows.

Oh, that's it, he thinks. If he actually wanted Yuuri to be here, Viktor would have said something to him, right? Because Yuuri’s the type to hide, to hedge on his words and rearrange and rearrange them in his head until either it's too late to say them, or he's mangled them so badly that saying them screws everything up -- not Viktor. So the only logical conclusion, his mind whispers to him over the music, is that Viktor _doesn't_ want him here. And the only logical outcome of this mess is something awkward, something hurtful, something he'll probably regret once the music stops.

A decent person wouldn't let it get that far. “You know what,” Yuuri mumbles, getting to his feet, “I think I’m gonna call it a night.”

“What?” Phichit sputters over his drink. “But we just got here!”

“I know, I’m sorry.” He offers an apologetic smile. “You should stay, though. Okay? Get your commemorative photo with the band.”

He turns on his heel, tuning out Phichit’s protest. Belatedly, he remembers that he hasn’t even touched his drink -- oh, maybe that’s what Phichit’s calling after him for -- but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t feel like drinking. He’s accomplished what he came here for: he’s seen the Sticky Splinters perform one last time.

He wonders who’ll take their place, after they’re gone. He’s had similar thoughts about himself before, watching the new crop of 18-year-olds carving out room for themselves on the ice, on the podium, nipping ever-closer to Christophe’s records. The show must go on, right? So does life.

Yuuri’s got the door in his sight when a bold, reckless chord crashes over his head.

He turns around. Mila and Leo haven’t stopped playing, but their mouths have fallen open in surprise. Georgi is the only one who doesn’t look too fazed, but like the other two, he’s also staring at Viktor… who’s staring hard at Yuuri.

More big chords, loud and demanding, follow right after Yuuri meets his eyes. They don’t break the melody; Viktor’s too good, and too committed of a performer for that. But it’s clear that when he brings his hands down hard, and again, and again, never breaking the gaze-lock the whole time, there’s more Viktor in the moment than there is Vice.

 _Don’t -- you dare -- walk out_ , a cascading series of chords demands. _Sit down!_

Dumbfounded, Yuuri does just that.

“Yay, you changed your mind!”

“Uh.” Yuuri wraps his hands around the mug, but he still doesn’t drink. “Maybe one more song.”

The one they’re currently playing ends much like it began: mellow and repetitive, but in a way that makes you feel like home. The piano and bass go back and forth again, playing the main melody off of each other in a gradually softer way as the song winds down.

Georgi’s murmuring something to Leo, who cocks his head for a moment, before nodding. Then, as Georgi thanks the audience again, Leo’s the one whispering in Mila’s ear, and whatever he says results in the bassist breaking into a wide, brilliant smile.

“I’m gonna go get some water,” Phichit says. “Last time I showed up to practice hungover, I swear Ciao-Ciao was yelling in a higher pitch than normal on purpose.”

“Get me one too?” Yuuri calls out, a few seconds after Phichit starts walking to the bar. Damn it. Oh well.

He doesn’t catch the name of the song, if that’s what Georgi was even saying into the mic. His clouded mind -- and why, _why_ , he hasn’t even had a drop of alcohol yet -- dimly registers the applause, and the murmurs dying down as some of the patrons hush each other.

Yuuri counts a good ten seconds of silence that follow. On the ninth or so, Viktor’s hunched over the piano.

And then, [it starts to cry](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnhQMU9ZF64).

He doesn’t know how else to describe the way Viktor opens the song: he just launches right into it without preamble, with high notes that linger and slide down as though they’re being dragged across the keys, loud and choppy and desperate. There’s beauty in the brokenness of it, the way it settles when the trumpet comes in to calm it -- and isn’t it usually the other way around? Yuuri doesn’t know; he tries to focus on the melody Georgi plays, which also runs high and seems to love its accidentals, but it’s sweet and tender to his ears.

Yuuri doesn’t realize he’s heard verses until he’s already hearing a bridge. The unresolved chords Viktor plays to lead up were a giveaway, as were how Mila and Leo dropped off to give Georgi the floor. This is where he really shines, Yuuri thinks: when he plays with abandon, like he’s got so much emotion pent up that he’ll burst if he doesn’t let it out. That’s what this bridge sounds like -- something earnest, something…

A thought bubbles into his head. He blinks and squashes it down. No, that doesn’t make sense. It sounds like a confession -- but you can’t have one without words, and if the the way this melody is wrapping up is any indication, Georgi’s not going to be singing in this number.

He repeats the last line with an eye cracked open, a tilt in his head giving him away. Yuuri follows his gaze to the pianist, who gives an almost imperceptible nod. Georgi’s smiling into his trumpet as he takes it home, winds it down, resolves it.

But Viktor picks up, with chords that sound shy but playful, like an invitation to waltz. Georgi’s still smiling as he sets his trumpet down.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announces, with a grand sweep of his arm: “Vice -- who’s not so good with words.”

Viktor shoots Georgi a momentary, wide-eyed look that screams of betrayal -- Yuuri guesses that introduction probably wasn’t planned. Still, he doesn’t miss a beat, launching into a beautiful sequence of chords that reminds Yuuri of waves on the beach back home: gentle, rolling, curling over themselves to come back again. Someone kills most of the lights over half the stage after a couple of measures, so that the only overhead light that remains illuminates Viktor -- and to a certain extent, Mila, who’s the only one of the rest of the band who’s still playing at this point.

Yuuri sees them lock eyes with one another. Viktor looks unsure, but Mila responds with a smirk, and plays a rapid, descending sequence that’s got her fingers flying across the neck of her upright bass.

Whatever that was about, whatever _any_ of this has been about, it seems to help him decide: Viktor takes a deep breath, and starts to sing.

 _“He never treats me… sweet and gentle_  
_The way he should_   
_I’ve got it bad… and that ain't good…_ ”

Oh. Oh, okay.

It’s easy to throw up a wall to hide behind: _it’s not about you_ , he tells himself again. _It’s not_. There are about 700,000 people living in this city alone. It doesn’t have to be about anyone at all, come to think of it. He shouldn’t read anything into this.

He shouldn’t… he shouldn’t feel anything. That the chords that follow as a brief interlude, pointed and decisive, seem to feel like they’re skewering him means… nothing.

 _“My poor heart is so… sentimental_  
_It's not made of wood_   
_I’ve got it bad… and that ain't good…_ ”

_(How can you say something like that?)_

Oh… no. No.

_(Like you’re trying to shatter my heart.)_

… Really?

Yuuri doesn’t want to believe. He doesn’t want to believe, because there’s a very, very thin line between that and _hoping_ , and if he lets himself hope then it’s all over. Either that, or this all goes to hell, but Yuuri thinks that even if this song ends up entirely about heartbreak, or even about hate, it’s fine; he can take it. It’s only fair, given how their last conversation went. If this is the only way that he can hear Viktor out, let him have closure… then he’s not going anywhere. Not until Viktor’s done.

 _“But when the weekend's over_ _  
_ _And Monday rolls around…”_

Pizza boxes and piano ditties, and lazy Sundays, and a very affectionate brown poodle all flash in his mind. The song’s turned quiet, contemplative; even Mila’s dropped out, at this point. Viktor’s the only one left playing.

And for some reason, when that realization hits, Yuuri wishes he could will the audience away -- so that he’s the only one left listening.

 _“I end up like I started out --_ _  
_ _Just crying my heart out…”_

There’s the memory of something shimmering in his eyes, catching the light. Slips of the tongue whenever Yuuri asked if he was tired, an embrace that lasted a few seconds too long, too tight. Bottles of vodka, some empty, some full, some in-between like you could line them up and make music with them.

_(Please don’t leave me again.)_

_“He don't love me…”_

The sheer force and bitterness of the chords that follow make Yuuri wince. Mila’s eyes widen, and someone in the audience lets out a soft gasp.

He can’t pretend anymore. This hurts too much. He can’t --

“ _Like I love him…”_

...What?

Yuuri’s world stills when Viktor looks up, right at him. The cacophony dies, replaced by something warm, and soft, and -- if he dares to hope himself -- _hopeful_ :

_“‘Cause nobody could…”_

Yuuri’s heart skips a beat, because -- he’s smiling.

Viktor is smiling at him.

And Yuuri knows he’s not just imagining this, knows that trying to keep denying it to himself would just be stupid. He hears a light trill of notes, a signature he’s heard many times before without realizing it, and one he’s attached to the memory of heart-shaped smiles. The music seizes him, and he, in turn, clings to every note.

He doesn’t want to let go.

And Viktor… whether he deserves him or not, at the end of the day, Yuuri finally stops lying to himself and accepts this: he doesn’t want to let go of Viktor either.

 _“I’ve got it bad…_ _  
_ _And it sure is good.”_

It’s in the finality of that last sequence, like the waves from the opening receding back into the sea -- the soft hiss of the cymbals, then the rush of applause -- that Yuuri’s head finally clears.

Maybe it’s too late.

Maybe it’s unfair.

Neither of those changes the fact that Viktor’s the first person he’s ever wanted to hold onto, and it’s about time he stopped trying to fight that.

This is why, the moment Georgi announces an intermission, Yuuri’s on his feet. He goes against the throng of patrons who are suddenly all making their way to the bar, squeezing into the spaces between them with his chest threatening to burst. He wants to run. He wants to jump over all of these tables in his way, _why are there so many tables in his way,_ and he’s just about to climb over one when he sees an opening, and bursts through the crowd to the space on the other side.

Mila and Leo are still on stage; Georgi’s signing an autograph a few feet away. Yuuri stops to wave at them, but immediately presses on.

There’s nowhere else to go from here. Yuuri finally breaks into a sprint, past the stage, then through the storage area behind it, nearly stumbling when his foot catches on the edge of the carpet as he tries to navigate the space between the stacks of chairs. There’s the door to the cellar, and another marked ‘Staff Only’. And then…

Yuuri finally finds the pianist leaning against the rear exit door, taking a swig from a bottle of water. He stops in his tracks.

“Hello, Yuuri.”

Yuuri swallows. His throat is dry, and he remembers now that he’s completely, woefully sober. Come on. _Say something_. After all these weeks apart, and everything that happened before them, he thinks he should have come up with a thousand things by now. Nothing makes it out.

“You heard my performance, didn’t you?” Viktor has to break the silence for them, smiling softly at nothing as he sets the water bottle down. There’s something almost bashful about his tone. “It’s surprisingly nerve-wracking every time. I have no idea how Georgi does it.”

Yuuri stares at him. Viktor chuckles, and runs a hand through his hair. A glint of something confident, playful, lights up his eyes.

“I did pretty well, right?”

Viktor is the first person he’s ever wanted to hold onto. Viktor is also a person he’s hurt, so very deeply, and Yuuri thinks that perhaps a better person would walk away. After everything he’s realized -- everything Viktor sang tonight, every note he played that burrowed deep into his heart -- Yuuri finds he can’t be that person. Not until he at least responds.

There’s a word to describe this mess of emotions, swirling and twisting and aching inside of him. _I got it bad, but it’s so good._ He doesn’t say that word, because his stupid voice is still failing him.

But he’s no longer a coward. Without champagne, and without any certainty, Yuuri surges forward and presses his lips against Viktor’s.

And in those moments that follow, the noises of the bar, of his mind, all cease.

And he sees Viktor’s eyes widen, so blue and so stunning up close, and Yuuri lets his own slide shut because: _all or nothing._

And the world is tilting; Viktor was leaning against the crash bar of the door, and now that Yuuri’s practically tackled him, it’s become too much. The door jerks open, Viktor loses his footing, and Yuuri’s better judgment kicks in: he grasps the back of Viktor’s head with his hand to protect it, and breaks the kiss before they both hit the pavement.

When he comes back to himself, he’s got his face buried in the pianist’s shoulder. His heart’s hammering in his chest. He pushes himself up -- ow, _ow_ , his knuckles sting under Viktor’s head. But the look on his face is one that Yuuri will never forget, and it’s all worth it.

“I… I’m no good with words either.” He finally finds his voice. “This was the only thing I could think of. To -- to let you know…”

“Yeah?” Viktor breathes. His face relaxes into a tender smile. “Well, it worked.”

It worked. It worked. Yuuri smiles back, and fights the urge to kiss him again for the chance to just look at him, his shining eyes and his tousled hair, the smile Yuuri missed so much. The smile that finally soothes the dull ache he’s been ignoring in his chest for so long.

He still doesn’t say that word out loud. But he knows that it’s ‘love’.

“You locked us out.” Viktor glances over his shoulder, to the door that’s clicked shut behind them. “I don’t believe it.”

Yuuri feels his cheeks heating up. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “For -- for the door, yeah. But also, everything else. I _was_ cruel, and you deserve better than what I gave you. I’m so sorry, Viktor…”

Once again, the words come rushing out of him without his permission. This time, Viktor silences him with something just as familiar: his thumb brushing under Yuuri’s bottom lip.

“You and I both made choices that should have damned us,” he whispers, “and yet here we are still.” He lets out a thoughtful hum, and tilts his head. “How about we start over, then?”

23 years of doubt, avoidance, and self-flagellation all rail against that suggestion. No way. After everything, can it really be that easy?

Maybe it can, he realizes in the end, because he’s laughing as he straightens himself up, and holds out his hand. “I’m Yuuri Katsuki. Dime-a-dozen figure skater from Japan. I love dogs, video games… and as of lately, jazz music.”

Oh, his knuckles are bleeding after all, he sees now, just a little bit. But then Viktor takes his hand, presses a kiss against the back of it, and Yuuri no longer cares.

“Viktor Nikiforov,” he murmurs. “Dime-a-dozen pianist from Russia… and I love figure skaters who love dogs, video games, and jazz music.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (*^‿^*) *bounces*
> 
> \- [Mack the Knife](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEllHMWkXEU) \- I had another version bookmarked, the one by Clark Terry, but Youtube pulled it. Sadness. Anyway, here's one by Bobby Darin.  
> \- [So What?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXk1LBvIqU) by Miles Davis and his ensemble sextet, from _Some Kind of Blue_ , which is the first jazz album I got so it's got a special place in my heart.  
> \- [I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnhQMU9ZF64) \- second song from this album that's featured on this fic, but I'll never get tired of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. Seriously, every song on that album is a gem, I highly recommend!
> 
> Next chapter might take a longer-ish time to come out (for reasons that will become clear when the chapter comes out -- no spoilers! But it's nothing horrible, I promise :D) so hopefully this is as good a place to leave off as any ;). Once again, I'm forever grateful for all the encouragement you guys have graced me with, every comment and ask and random yelling spree has really brightened up my day, every day. Thank you so much!
> 
> Oooh, last but not least: the [playlist](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1Rw0FqbhdFBtILc-IzVb_qQ4EkcL65nK) is here! I'll add more songs as we go, but for now, feel free to check it out and enjoy the jazz~


	7. (Improvisation: Piano Solo /1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating has gone up (from ‘T’ to ‘M’).  
> So has the target chapter count -- more on that later.

_nulla:_

Mama had long, fair hair that looked silver in the moonlight, and that’s what first caught Papa’s eyes. Mama danced, and Mama liked sweet things, and whenever Mama sang the family dog, Berkut, would howl along, and she loved that.

Mama died when Viktor was born, which is why he never got to meet her. It’s also why these are among the precious few things that he knows about Mama, and he makes sure to etch these memories into his mind even though they’re not his own, so that he can treasure them anyway.

 

 

 

_i:_

They’re rich, or so it seems. It’s not something that Viktor’s really aware of for much of his early years, and it takes him longer to fully appreciate the fact.

Not that he’s ungrateful for it, it just… _is._

Like how winter is cold, and how water is wet, and how the borscht their cook makes is the most delicious borscht in all of Russia. When you grow up surrounded by art and finery, and by cheerful maids all too eager to spoil the pretty child of the master of the house, you take some things for granted, sometimes.

 

 

 

_ii:_

Things like: music, and laughter, and the seagulls’ cries from a distance, reminding him that he’s home.

 

 

 

_iii:_

Viktor is three years old when he first sees the piano. It's a huge beast of a thing, black and glossy, reflecting his awed face back at him. It owns the entire great room, which is no small feat given the giant chandelier, and the East-facing bay window overlooking the garden.

“Go on. Try!”

Viktor pushes down on the first key, the leftmost one. If the piano is a beast, then the sound that key makes must be a growl, low and loud, displeased. Viktor jerks back, and the maid laughs as she returns to dusting the end table.

It was Mama’s piano, he learns that night. Not that she played, Papa says, but she was fond of all things beautiful. And the piano _is_ : so, so beautiful.

Mama didn’t play; dancing suited her more. Papa tells him once that he first laid eyes on Mama at a New Year’s party at the mansion some friend of his owned, back in year nineteen-forgotten: he was wandering the halls, looking for a bathroom, when he spotted her dancing alone in a darkened room, twirling, twirling with her long hair spinning like a veil behind her.

Papa’s only tender when he talks about Mama. So when Viktor asks about her all the time, it’s not just because he’s desperate to know more about her -- he likes seeing Papa smile.

 

* * *

 

There’s a lullaby the nanny hums at night, soft and sweet, soothing with its repeated, cheerful notes. Her voice settles over him like a second blanket, comforting him as she runs her hand through his hair.

 _Twinkle, twinkle, little star_ _  
_ _How I wonder what you are…_

It’s not until later, when he starts studying English, that he makes sense of the lyrics. Later still, he’ll learn that before it was a lullaby, it was a pastoral song, and that somewhere in between, Mozart plucked the melody and [spun it into gold](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS7yiD6cz8A).

None of that matters when he climbs up onto the piano bench one rainy afternoon, hums out the melody in his mind, and then entrusts it to the piano. He’s learned by now that the beast can be calm if you’re kind to it, and although his fingers don’t quite have the weight yet, every tone is borne more of an entreaty than a demand. _Please sing this for me_ , he requests of the beast. _Very nicely. Thank you._

He’s not sure why the maid’s stopped dusting, or why she’s calling frantically for Papa by the time he plays the song again.

 

 

 

_iv:_

It’s just that he doesn’t grasp how remarkable this is until it’s too late, and the adults are already throwing out words like ‘genius’ and ‘prodigy’, and Viktor can no longer shake them off.

 

 

 

_v:_

Berkut dies three days shy of Viktor’s birthday. They don’t tell him that, at least not in those words -- or maybe they do, and Viktor doesn’t understand it at the time. He accepts it, like he accepts almost anything the adults tell him at that age, but he doesn’t understand: why Berkut couldn’t stay, why it was ‘time’, why he can never see her again.

“Never ever?”

Viktor is sad. The gardener guides him through the thick grass near the edge of their property, and points out a stone where he’s carved her name. She was a good dog, he says, and she lived a good life. “12 years, very, very good for a Russian wolfhound.” Viktor stares at the stone, tries to remember the way she would curl up under the piano and nose at his feet as he played; the slant of her eyes, the sunlight in her pale golden fur.

She was Mama’s dog before she was his. What is worse: to know something and miss it deeply when it’s gone forever, or never to have known it at all? Viktor doesn’t know the answer to that, but thinking about it makes him sadder, so he stops.

 

* * *

 

For his birthday, Viktor gets an adorable little Samoyed puppy. Papa names him Taiga.

 

 

 

_vi:_

When Viktor meets Yakov Feltsman, his feet don’t reach the pedals yet.

“This is Anna’s son?” He is asking Papa, but Viktor recognizes his mother’s name and nods brightly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

When Yakov takes a seat, Viktor feels something shift in the air, and knows that everything has changed. Yakov, with his broad shoulders and thinning hair, fills the room with a presence that feels like it’s pushing down on Viktor’s head from above. He finds his eyes drawn to the man’s gloved hands, wonders how much music has been conjured by them over the years, and if all the whispers of his greatness are true.

He’s definitely not Miss Eva, who started him off with rhythm games, flashcards, workbooks to color in, whimsical little jingles to help him remember the _sharp!_ and the _rest_ and the _do-re-mi_. She brought stuffed toys during their first year -- one of them was ‘Beethoven Bear’ -- and later finger puppets to tap out rhythms on the black keys, until Viktor could do them himself. Until her very last day, two weeks ago, she was so effervescent with her praise: _“You are so talented, Vitya,”_ she gushed. _“So talented! Would that your mother could hear you!”_

Papa leaves the room. Yakov turns to Viktor and introduces himself by saying: “Vasily tells me you have been practicing some Mozart.” When Viktor nods, he also nods, and gestures towards the piano. “I want to hear.”

Viktor [plays for him](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UvGf13H6wQ), eager to show his new teacher what he’s learned from having spent these past two years devoting hours and hours to the piano every week. His feet swing through the space beneath the bench as his fingers fly over the keys. The paper says this piece is supposed to be a march, but it’s so upbeat and cheery that Viktor almost wants to liken it to a dance.

When he’s finished, there’s no sound of Miss Eva’s raving, or applause from some other members of the household who might have happened to amble by. Instead, Yakov has pulled out a metronome -- an electronic one, to his credit, not one of those old mechanical ones with weight and pendulum. He turns the dial. “This is how fast it’s supposed to go.”

The clicks resound in the great room, and they’re relentless. Viktor looks at the instrument, and then at the piano with wide eyes. “Wow,” he breathes.

“ _Da._ ”

He tugs at his sleeves. “N-no good, then?” he chuckles weakly.

“ _Very_ good.” Yakov doesn’t smile or soften his tone when he says this, so it takes a while for Viktor to process the words. “But I know you can be great.”

 

 

 

_vii:_

Yakov’s not unkind. He’s strict, and sharp, and he’s gruff words and furrowed brows and _‘You’re rushing’, ‘You’re sloppy’, ‘Again!’_ But magic streams from his fingertips whenever he plays, and he knows everything there is to know about his craft.

He’s nothing if not generous with this knowledge. He teaches Viktor all the terms and all the history, and he corrects even the slightest hunch in Viktor’s posture. Viktor thinks he can’t be thorough like that unless he cares.

Papa respects Yakov a lot. With time, and from listening to conversations the adults have while pretending he’s doing something else, Viktor learns that all of Russia respects him too. Before semi-retiring he was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, and before that he was a soloist with more than fifty orchestras around the world.

Yakov never talks about these things himself. Whenever Viktor asks, he simply tells him to mind his scales. Maybe the lesson here is that Viktor ought to stop asking when he’s being made to do scales, but the takeaway Viktor comes up with is that his mentor just doesn’t like to reminisce.

Viktor’s curious, though. He’s curious, and he’s resourceful, and he knows how to tug on a grown-up’s sleeve while standing on his tiptoes, sticking his bottom lip out just so. Uncle Roman slips him a VHS tape the next time he visits: _‘Mendelssohn Piano Concerto 1, Yakov Feltsman, Vienna 1992’_ is written in an unfamiliar scrawl on a sticker on the case.

Later that night, he sneaks down with Taiga to watch it in the living room. [The orchestra opens](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GGx8TRWFVA), as he expects, and Yakov comes in after just a few bars, hungry. As the concerto goes on it’s Yakov’s voice he hears in his head, narrating the things he can identify from their training: _Descending octave leap, ascending run. Dotted rhythm. A movement though B flat minor to D flat major, but it doesn’t stay there. A rather short cadenza, then: Andante in triple time._ But between the clipped phrases lie vast oceans of things unknown, things Viktor can’t enclose in words but he knows he just doesn’t have, not yet.

So far to go. So many more miles to walk, hours to burn.

He will, though. One day, _he_ will be the one striding into a packed concert hall and drawing the standing ovations, he knows it. He thinks he’d like to wear a much less boring suit when he does, though.

 

 

 

_viii:_

Viktor doesn’t go to school. Papa hires private tutors who come to the house instead, and each of them sits with him for an hour or two a day to go over lessons about… well, a lot of things. Science, math, smatterings of Russian history that turn into European history, that turn into world history. English on Mondays, French on Thursdays. Yakov tells him it’s better this way, so he can dedicate more time to practicing. One day, he overhears one of the maids saying it’s because one of Papa’s friends from work, men Viktor has never met, had his daughter kidnapped for ransom, and what a horrible thing that is. _‘Of course, he would want to keep his son safe.’_

_‘But the poor boy is missing out, no?’_

Viktor doesn’t feel that way, not really. Later on, some aunt of his will comment that it’s because he doesn’t know any better, but so what? Yakov is right, and he likes it like this.

Besides, at this point in his life, anything he learns from anyone other than Yakov finds its way back to the piano anyway, somehow. Fractions come easy to him because he already knows about time signatures, and much later on the synapses in his brain will make the connection between dotted notes and his math teacher’s endless rambling about geometric series. Sound, he learns, is born when air is shaken, and pitch, and timbre, and loudness are all dictated by the nature of how it trembles.

A slow Thursday afternoon in late July, after St. Petersburg’s White Nights have ended, his instructor is being lazy, and puts on some records. The melody of the first [song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4P1FpRwgBU) she plays is immediately, almost laughably, familiar:

 _“…L'ombre s'enfuit_  
_Ma lèvre hésite à murmurer,_  
_Après de doux aveux,_   
_Des mots d'adieu_

 _Le soleil paraît trop vite_  
_Faut-il donc que l'on se quitte_   
_Que m'importe à moi l'envol du temps_

 _Je voudrais tant retarder l'aurore_ _  
_ _Et t'aimer encore…”_

Viktor pries his hands away from the piano before his fingers can automatically continue from the 22nd bar of [Chopin’s Étude Op. 10, No. 3](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmQBFLJAIcY). “He sounds sadder than he should be,” he comments.

“Of course he is sad,” Madame Gauthier replies.

Viktor tilts his head. He wonders if he misheard. “But whoever he’s singing to, he’s just dreaming of them, isn’t he?”

“And he sings that he wishes to delay even the dawn for it. What do you suppose that means?”

Viktor doesn’t get it. Surely if you miss someone, and you dream about them -- that’s something to be happy about, isn’t it? It would be like having a chance to be with them again, even if you were never supposed to. Maybe one would feel sad when the dream ends, but he can’t imagine delaying that would make it any better, right?

He’s too young, Madame Gauthier says then, too young to understand. At his feet, Taiga wakes up from his nap, and sniffs at his shoelaces.

It doesn’t matter, Viktor thinks later after she takes her leave, and he watches her through the window. Yakov will be coming very soon, and then he can finally get some proper practice time. Everything else is a distraction.

 

 

 

_ix:_

One cold day in December, when Viktor is nine years old, Papa sends him on a day trip to Yakov’s. The house isn’t as vast as theirs, but it’s full of warm colors and little personal touches -- figurines and framed photos, souvenirs from some countries Viktor hasn’t even heard of. Potted plants sitting on window sills look like they’ve been there for years, and not brought out and replaced every season. The paintings hanging from the walls -- and there’s a whole bunch of them that just looks like pictures of haystacks, what the heck? -- all seem to share the same short, thick brush strokes and blue-toned shadows.

How does he put it? It looks… like a house that’s ‘lived-in’.

Most importantly: Yakov has a massive Steinway that sits in a room that looks like it was built around it. Viktor trots up to the piano with reverence.

“He will be down in a minute,” a crisp voice calls out just before his finger can make contact with middle C. “Have a seat -- Viktor, yes?”

Yakov’s wife, Lilia, is regal and statuesque, with glittering eyes and cheekbones that could cut glass. She smiles at him though, probably because all adults smile at him -- it’s what they do.

The paintings are all hers, he learns while they wait for Yakov to come down. He asks about the souvenirs, and she says that they share those: Yakov takes them from places he’s performed in, she from places she’s danced in. Something about that knowledge, thrown out so haphazardly, toggles a switch in his mind -- Mama was a dancer, Lilia was (or still is?) a dancer, so it feels the most natural thing in the world to ask, “Did you know my Mama?”

Lilia nods. “Lovely Anna,” she says with a sigh. “Her feet were the wings of a bird.”

What a small world, he thinks.

She shows him some pictures in a photo album later on, after practice with Yakov has ended and they sit in the sunroom with zefirs and tea. Anna Nikiforova was a soloist with the Bolshoi Ballet, and apparently that means a lot. Of course later on, he’ll find out that to have her dancing remembered by _the_ Lilia Baranovskaya is perhaps an equally weighted honor, but for now he’s content to pore and _‘wow’_ over the photos: Mama in a tutu, Mama with one leg raised standing on her toes. How on earth did she even do that?

They don’t have any pictures of Mama dancing in the house, or at least none that he remembers. In the portraits in the hallways she’s always just sitting down, or standing in her wedding dress next to Papa, smiling at the camera or something behind it.

“I wish I could dance,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know why. To feel closer to her, maybe? To be connected, in some way? He’s not sure if that makes any sense, now that he thinks about it.

Luckily, Lilia doesn’t ask him. “You can make beautiful music instead.”

Viktor laughs. “It’s not the same thing.”

“No? Music and dance, and art, all convey beauty. In the hands of a master, beauty is a crushing force of righteousness.”

Viktor’s hands are coated in light waffle crumbs from the last zefir he ate. He shrugs.

“I’ll tell my husband to teach you something from Debussy,” she announces, closing the photo album. “I believe it will help you understand.”

 

* * *

 

Over two years will go by before Yakov introduces him to [Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6s49OKp6aE). It’s definitely a beautiful piece, the type that you listen to once and then immediately fall in love with three measures in.

When the recording ends, though, he wonders if he’s missed something. Or if maybe, whatever Lilia wanted him to find can’t be found by ear alone.

So he learns it, and he plays it. He plays it day and night for months, until he swears he hears the ascending triplets at the end of the first section before falling asleep at night, and again from the moment he wakes up. He gets really, _really_ good at playing polyrhythms. But at the end of it all, he doesn’t really know -- he doesn’t feel any closer to Mama at all.  

 

 

 

_x:_

“Yakov tells me you were talking to Lilia about your mother.”

Viktor nods. He’s not sure if this alone is why Papa called him into his study this morning, all of a sudden. He’s not complaining, because he barely gets to see the man as it is -- Vasily travels a lot for his work, he’s been told countless times, and that’s why Viktor spends most of his days with just the household staff, Yakov, and his tutors for company.

Oh, and Taiga -- he shouldn’t forget about the dog who’s practically his shadow nowadays. Right now, Taiga’s exploring every corner of Papa’s study, his tail wagging furiously. Viktor doesn’t blame him; Papa’s study is probably the one room in the house that Taiga’s never seen.

“I’ll trust that she did not say anything that might have confused you. Or upset you.”

Viktor blinks. “She told me Mama was a dancer.” But they both know that he already knew that.

“Ah. Yes, she was.”

Papa looks tired. He’s drinking water from a small glass Viktor hasn’t seen in the dining room before, and he can’t help but notice that he does it in such tiny sips.

“She didn’t leave much behind. But she had a record collection -- a small one, anyway. She was just starting it, when…” He trails off. “I can have them pulled from storage. If you want them.”

“Yes, please.” Viktor has to resist the urge to bounce where he stands. “I’d love to have them!”

Papa nods. He refills his glass with a water bottle that he keeps in the bottom drawer of his desk, but the bottle’s label has been peeled off. How odd. “I’ll have them sent to your room, then.”

 

* * *

 

Something he learns: Mama was related to the great Sergei Rachmaninoff, somehow. Four generations, but they cut a winding path, and there’s something about cousins and a half-brother along the way. Still, it explains why those of her records with his music on them, with their worn jackets, look the most loved.

Viktor asks Yakov when he might be ready to play something from him. This year? Or the next, for Mama’s birthday? And he wants to do something big, something that will surprise people -- maybe a whole concerto!

“Absolutely not,” the man snorts. “You are years and _years_ away from that level.”

Viktor’s pouting. He doesn’t do it on purpose, or even feel it really -- he only realizes because Yakov lets out a massive sigh, pinching at the bridge of his nose, and that’s how Viktor knows that he’s pouting, because Yakov _always_ does that when he’s pouting.

“Years!” the man repeats, louder, like Viktor didn’t hear him the first time. Still, it’s not a ‘no’, so Viktor counts that as a tentative win.

Viktor comes up with two hypotheses that night, listening to Rachmaninoff’s [Prelude in C# Minor](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-qwJoFQ3qo). One: there is just something about this key that does not do good things for his mood, especially on a rainy, gray day like this -- Chopin’s [Nocturne](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hyAOYMUVDs) was one such offender, but this one might be even worse. And two: the man must have had massive hands!

Viktor looks at his own tiny ones and thinks: _someday._

 

 

 

_xi:_

A day in the life goes like this:

He’s up a little after sunrise, a melody from the latest piece he’s learning already sitting in his head to greet the day, every day. Something light after breakfast, either self-imposed rhythm exercises or a review of whatever it was he was last playing the night before. He has non-piano lessons from nine to three, then Yakov comes over. After dinner, an hour or two of practice. Then bedtime, where he gets to dream of grace notes and slides.

_“But when do you find time to play?”_

What? That’s silly, he plays with Taiga all the time. They run around the grounds, play fetch --

_“But when do you play with your friends? Children your age!”_

Viktor isn’t sure he understands the question.

 

 

 

_xii:_

Every time some relatives or associates of Papa’s come over, they always get Viktor to play something for them. No-one ever even requests it anymore; Viktor just knows to go dutifully to the piano whenever someone invariably asks, “What are you working on now?”

He’s spacing out in the middle of _[La Campanella](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEnfZjqMSy0)_ , which is a terrible thing to do with all of this piece’s treacherous jumps. Viktor forces his mind to snap back into focus, and barely saves one such leap across the keys.

Yakov’s in the audience today, which doesn’t happen often. He’s standing in front of the mirror on the wall that separates the great room from the foyer, wearing a disapproving scowl. Figures -- Viktor can’t hope to hide anything from him. That, and Yakov was opposed to him learning this piece from the very start. _‘Not yet’_ , he said the first time Viktor asked. _‘You don’t have the speed, or the strength in your fingers. You’re always rushing into these things.’_

All valid points. He acknowledges, if only in his head, that he’s not playing the piece perfectly just yet. A lot of the parts are slower than they should be, and all those high D sharps can just go to hell, honestly. Still, he can tell from the gushing that his audience can’t tell the difference -- Yakov doesn’t count -- so that’s something, he guesses. This is enough for now. He’ll do better next time.

And since he’s probably butchered this piece about dozens of times already, he figures -- what the hell? -- and ad libs a series of high trills where they’re definitely not supposed to be.

 _That_ gets Yakov’s attention.

Later, when the rest of their guests have moved on to talking about politics and other uninteresting things, Yakov grumbles, “I’m very curious to know what was going on in your head when you did that.”

“It surprised you, didn’t it?”

Yakov scowls. “Such arrogance will do you no favors in competition, Vitya.”

“No arrogance.” He shrugs. “I’d take the deductions. It’ll be fine if I nail everything else, right?” At least, he thinks that’s how it works; he honestly can’t remember. Is that how it works?

That one vein in Yakov’s forehead is becoming so prominent, Viktor wonders if it’s time to come up with a name for it. “Please don’t tell me this is the start of what is going to be a very bad habit.”

Viktor grins. “I won’t tell you, then.”

 

 

 

_xiii:_

When he stands in front of a mirror now, he starts to see what everyone else sees: that he took everything from Mama, her eyes and her hair, her chin and her cheekbones, her skin and the shape of her smile.

That year, Viktor stops cutting his hair.

 

 

 

_xiv:_

The first competition Yakov signs him up for is the Tchaikovsky Competition for Junior Musicians in 2002. Xiamen is the first city he sees outside of St. Petersburg, and they arrive a few days before the competition proper.

It’s almost overwhelming. He gawks at the brightly-colored roofs, the Buddhist temples, the beaches lined with trees. All of the street food -- even the worm jelly -- is _vkusno_. He’s so excited Yakov threatens to put a leash on him.

Viktor finishes in fourth place, which Yakov says is good for his first try. He thinks the crowd, the pressure, or even the exhaustion should have gotten to him, but none of that happened. He’s a natural at this, Yakov says -- he should be proud of himself.

Viktor’s not convinced that he couldn’t have done better, which frustrates him, though he doesn’t let it show. It’s because Papa wasn’t in the audience, he’s convinced. But it couldn’t be helped. Papa’s work comes first. It always does.

He’s happy, though, at the end of the day. There’s nowhere to go from here but up.

 

 

 

_xv:_

Viktor doesn’t compete for the next couple of years. Instead, he throws himself body and soul into practice, determined to become better, always better. When he’s not spending time with Taiga, or fidgeting in his seat and resisting the urge to tap out a rhythm exercise on his desk in front of one of his tutors, he’s at the piano. The theory consumes him; he navigates the cycle of fifths, cycle of fourths, dynamics and intervals and scales, and scales, _and scales,_ so often in the spaces of his mind that when Yakov grills him, he doesn't even bat an eyelid. ‘Home’ is less a mansion in his father’s name on the shore of Lake Suzdal than it is 88 keys and a bench he no longer has to adjust.

Maybe that’s why Papa thinks it won’t matter to him either way, and arranges for him to live full-time with Yakov and Lilia. “They’ve agreed to host you indefinitely. That’s very generous of them. Don’t abuse their hospitality.”

Papa’s turning his study inside-out, taking notebooks, envelopes, and loose papers from drawers and some compartments Viktor never even knew about until today. “Why ‘indefinitely’?”

“Because I have to do a lot of travelling for work in the coming future. This is for the best.”

Viktor frowns. Fifteen years and nobody has been able to tell him in clear, simple language what his father actually does for a living -- not Yakov, or Lilia, or any of the household staff. He knows better than to ask the man himself, since Papa just doesn’t talk about these things with him. Viktor, on the other hand, imagines he can spend many hours and animated hand gestures talking about scales, so maybe he speaks enough for the both of them. “But you’ll come back to Russia, right?”

“Perhaps, but I don’t know when that would be. Hence why it’s indefinite for now.”

No it’s not, he wants to shout. This job probably won’t last eighty years, why don’t they start with that and move their way down? Why must everything be so cagey and vague?

“This is for the best,” Papa says again. “You want to compete again soon, right?”

Viktor makes a noncommittal sound. _Did you know that yourself, or did someone have to tell you?_ he bites back.

“With this arrangement you can spend more time with Yakov. Evenings, weekends. Holidays. Train with the man without inconveniencing him.”

Papa finally puts the last of his papers into the open box sitting on his massive desk, and slumps with a sigh into his executive chair. He takes a pull from what looks like the same label-less water bottle Viktor first saw in this study five years ago, but Viktor’s a lot less stupid now than he was five years ago. “It’s eight in the morning,” he murmurs before he can help himself.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Viktor relaxes into a smile. “When should I start packing?”

Papa lets out another, heavier sigh. “Vitya. You know that I am doing this only for your sake.”

Maybe it’s for the best after all, he thinks as he heads up to his room, Taiga ambling along beside him. How many times have their sessions’ momentum been interrupted by Yakov’s time running out, and how many times has Viktor had self-imposed practice sessions cut short by something as inconvenient as midnight? Living with Yakov means a Steinway in a soundproof room, sessions that can go on unimpeded, indefinitely (hah).

Papa only means well. It’s on him if this gift tastes like abandonment, so Viktor dutifully squashes that notion down.

 

* * *

 

He’ll eventually learn that abandonment actually tastes like butterbrots and lukewarm coffee from a paper cup, while he and Yakov watch his father’s plane take off into the sunrise.

The last words Viktor said to him at the airport were, “I’m joining all the international competitions from now on, so if we’re ever in the same city, come watch me play!”

They should have been: _Please don’t leave me._

Papa didn’t look back either way, though.

 

 

 

_xvi:_

Yakov gets him a poodle when Taiga dies. Viktor names him ‘Makkachin’, and when Lilia asks him what that means, he just shrugs. Because it doesn’t mean anything, but it sounds nice to the ears, and isn’t that enough?  

Viktor writes letters, because Papa’s old-fashioned that way, and because Aunt Irina says this is probably the ‘safest’ way to reach him. He writes about how his lessons are going, and how he’s getting back to competition next year, and how he’ll do his best at it, and he’d love it if Papa could watch. He sends some pictures of Makkachin, and some others that Lilia took of him sitting at Yakov’s piano.

He writes that he misses him, and hopes he can come home soon.

 

* * *

 

Papa responds once, by sending him a postcard for Christmas. His blocky, slanted cursive echoes the greeting on the card, but doesn’t acknowledge the other thing that happens once a year on December 25.

 

 

 

_xvii:_

Viktor starts the final round of his first senior competition, the Chopin Competition in 2005, fighting off the tail end of what might be an ill-timed flu.

“Vitya. It’s time.”

He groans. It takes all of the willpower he can muster to crack an eye open, and by then he’s about ready to call it a day. “Five minutes?”

“No. The car is already waiting.”

It started off so well, too. He sailed through all three rounds of the competition recitals feeling confident and great. Sure, there was the gradual scratchiness of his throat, the sneeze he had to fight back in the middle of Chopin’s [Mazurka in D major](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LkXsnEEQmE), but he ignored those little things. Nothing a good night’s sleep couldn’t fix.

Of course, when he found out the next morning that he was through to the finals, he’d already made a cocoon of himself in the blankets from both his and Yakov’s beds and gone through at least a gallon of tea. For all of his plans to go sight-seeing and trying at least a dozen kinds of pierogi, all of the next few days were spent either sleeping, or forcing down soup, or sneaking in some practice and getting yelled at in the process.

Still, he’s a lot better now than he was three days ago. He counts himself lucky that his slot for the final round is on the last day, today, if only to balance out the supremely shitty fact that he got sick in the first place.

Ten minutes before he’s supposed to go on stage, he’s in the bathroom hunched over a sink. Splashing water on his face doesn’t do as much for the burning behind his eyelids as he hoped, so he abandons that. He feels as though he should be more nervous than he is. Maybe he would have been, if he weren’t so tired.

No. He’s got this. Thousands of hours of practice won’t be undone by something so trivial. And besides, he’s come this far, right? He just has to push on a little more. _Just a little bit longer._

“The second participant of today’s session is Viktor Nikiforov from Russia, number 10. He will be playing the Steinway, performing Piano Concerto in E minor, Opus 11: _Allegro maestoso, Romanze -- Larghetto, Rondo -- Vivace_.”

Whatever lingering doubts and exhaustion stay in the wings and die the moment Viktor steps onto the stage. The welcoming applause and soft, muted lights make him feel warm in more ways than one. He strides with purpose down the narrow path that cuts through the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, and the concertmaster shakes his hand, wishing him luck.

He catches himself staring at his toes when he bows, momentarily floored. He's here. This is happening.

He flips his coattails over the back of the bench, tucks a wayward strand of hair that escaped his ponytail behind his ear. He takes a breath.

Viktor keeps a smile on his face through the orchestral opening: four minutes, give or take, of him remaining silent while everyone else sets up the themes.

He moves his hands as the strings start to die -- literally, die, it says so on the score, _‘smorzando’_ \-- letting them hover over the keys. He thinks of how, when this is all over and he’s back in St. Petersburg, he’s going to take Makkachin out to the lake, and they’ll spend the day just running and playing on the shore. Later that night, when he sits at the piano, he’ll play whatever he feels like. One day’s grace, before he does all of this all over again.

Finally: bar 139, Here he goes.

Viktor holds absolutely nothing back when his hands finally bear down on the piano, just as the score demands. And then he puts on a show.

 

* * *

 

He makes one mistake that night.

It’s not in the extra trills he adds, no matter how much Yakov eventually yells at him for them. “Nope, those were on purpose,” Viktor cheerfully assures him later that night, poring over the hotel’s room service menu and wondering if he’ll get away with ordering cake at midnight. “I still won though, didn’t I?”

His mistake is glancing up at the audience during the orchestra’s introduction of the second movement, and noticing the empty seat next to Yakov.

It’s okay, though. The show must go on, and so it does.

 

 

 

_xviii:_

Papa doesn’t come to next year’s competition in Leeds, either.

 

 

 

_xix:_

There’s a reception held for the winners of the 2007 International Tchaikovsky competition. They’re all shuttled to a banquet hall immediately after the gala concert, which Viktor thinks is a bit of a pain. Couldn’t they at least have taken a detour to the hotel first? He needs a shower. And coffee. Or to stand in the shower and pour the coffee over his head, he’s so tired.

“If we stop by the hotel,” Yakov comments, “all you will do is sleep until our flight tomorrow.”

Well, he’s not wrong. Viktor sighs and stares out the window, watching pieces of Moscow zip by. Against the leather of the seat, he taps out a few bars of the piano concerto in B minor he was playing just a few minutes ago.

He wonders if they’re only going to this much trouble because they got a homegrown champion this year. He wants to redo his braid.

The food is good, at least. This is the kind of party where everyone just stands around and mingles, while wait staff mill around carrying trays of hors d'oeuvres and drinks. Most of Viktor’s motivations for the night converge into the task of following around the waiter with the mini salmon kulebyaka, and somehow doing it inconspicuously.

“You’ve now won four international piano competitions in a row. That puts you in a tie with the previous world record, an outstanding accomplishment for someone so young.”

Oh, right. He should have figured that this event might be crawling with press. He hand-waves an answer about being thrilled, and exhausted, and how sometimes it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. They lap it up. He publicly thanks Yakov for being an excellent teacher. They lap that up, too.

“What are your plans for next year?”

“Well, next year is the Van Cliburn competition. I hope I can qualify and try my luck there as well.”

“Very interesting. Is it safe to say you’re gunning to win it all, and claim that world record for yourself?”

Viktor smiles. “That’s the idea.”

“Care to give us any hints on what you’ve got planned for next year?”

Yakov actually wrote out a canned response for Viktor to use against this very question. It’s avoidant but teasing, and dangles the promise of something spectacular while hiding behind the ever-so-vague wording of choices being ‘born out of that spark of inspiration’. Viktor knows it word-for-word. “I’ve been thinking of doing Rach 3!”

A murmur ripples through the small crowd around Viktor. Yakov shoots him an exasperated look. Viktor just shrugs -- _should have let me freshen up at the hotel._

“You’re referring to Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, is that correct?”

“An excellent choice! Do you have any emotional connection to the piece?”

“Do you aim to go back to your roots by exploring Rachmaninoff’s work?”

“Is it the technical challenge it poses that inspires you?”

The questions don’t end. Viktor spots a waiter coming out of the kitchen carrying a tray of things he hasn’t tasted yet, and politely excuses himself. It’s probably for the best, anyway. Let Yakov deal with all the reporters.

He mostly just wants to go home. Granted, Moscow isn’t terribly far from St. Petersburg at all, but the homesickness hits hard this time around -- probably having something to do with how easily the champagne goes down. He misses Makkachin.

He wishes that he _didn’t_ wish Papa were here, even after all this time.

“Um… um… V-Viktor Nikiforov!”

When Viktor turns and finds himself face-to-face with Lilia, the first thought he has is that that wasn’t her voice he heard at all. He has to look lower to meet the eyes of the child tugging at the end of his tie -- and oh God, when did _he_ become the adult?

“Hello there. What’s your name?”

“Yuri Plisetsky. C-congratulations on your win!”

“Thank you very much.” Viktor lets out a little laugh at how adorable this is.

“Yuri is one of my best students.” Lilia places her hands on Yuri’s shoulders. “His grandparents live here in Moscow. I brought him along so he could visit them.”

“That’s very thoughtful.” Lilia doesn’t usually come with them whenever he and Yakov hit the road for competitions and concerts -- she’s far too busy for that, plus she has classes of her own to worry about. “And you?” Viktor smiles down at Yuri. “Are you going to be a _premier danseur_ for the Bolshoi Ballet one day?”

Yuri shakes his head. Viktor learns then, from an even mix of words and charades, that he wants to become a champion figure skater when he grows up. Lilia teaches him ballet and choreographs his programs for him, and the result is much of the same -- just on the ice, and with a lot more jumping. Fancy that.

“I’m going to win the World Championship for Russia,” he declares. Adorable. “When I do, I want to skate to the song that you played at the gala!”

“Wow, which part?”

“The really epic, fast part at the end, duh.” Yuri sniffs like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Lilia squeezes his shoulder with a scowl.

“Alright then,” Viktor laughs. He sets his empty champagne flute on a passing waiter’s tray. “I’ll tell you what. When you’re old enough to win that championship, come find me and I’ll play something for you to skate to. How does that sound?”

Yuri Plisetsky’s hand is tiny and probably can’t span a full octave on the piano, but his grip is solid and tight.

 

* * *

 

Rach 3, as it turns out, is something to lament. Not just in the literal way -- he’s read the history, knows vaguely enough about the headspace the composer was in at the time. No, what’s lamentable is how, less than a month after Yakov finally gives his blessing, Viktor finds himself doing a lot less celebrating and a lot more bitching.

The subject of his grumbling varies by the day. On Monday it’s the notes, _so so so many notes, Yakov,_ and on Tuesday it might be the ridiculous intervals between those notes. Some sections demand extremely rapid double notes, and others teach him that he’s not as good at polyrhythms as he thinks he is. He doesn’t even have words for the cadenza.

It’s not that he doesn’t make any progress with it. Familiarity comes, albeit slowly, and sometimes when he doubles down and works at the problematic parts, he ends up making some progress. Other days are not so good, and then he’ll have spent eight full hours exhausting himself and either not having enough to show for it, or even _regressing_ at the end. He’ll try not to hate himself on those days, but he even fails at that, too.

This is the most frustrating part, because he’s had plenty of bad days before -- just, not this many. Why is this different? Why does he care so much this time?

Well, he supposes he already knows the answer. It’s the same as it’s been for the past nine years.  

“For the love of God, stop complaining,” Yakov bites out after a particularly terrible afternoon practice session. “You asked for this, did you not?”

He supposes he did.

That night, long after Lilia has given up trying to convince him to head upstairs, Viktor sits alone on the worn couch next to the piano, staring at the ceiling while the waltz section plays in his mind. There’s a bowl of water sitting on top of the end table, which he was using to soak his fingers in until about half an hour ago; the water’s at room temperature now, or maybe even colder than that.

He left the door slightly ajar. When he hears a creak, he opens his eyes (weird -- when did he even close them?) and sees Makkachin sticking her nose into the gap to widen it, before she trots into the room.

“Hey.” He smiles and beckons her closer. “If I never manage to get this right in my lifetime, at least _you_ won’t judge me. Will you?”

Makkachin leaps onto the couch and rests her head in his lap, and Viktor laughs for the first time that day. He shuts his eyes again to try for a short nap -- he’s only got two hours left before Yakov will come down those stairs, grumbling about coffee. He doesn’t succeed, but the darkness and quiet are something of a reprieve, in their own way.

 

* * *

 

“Have you ever given much thought to love?”

It’s a sleepy, dry afternoon in the peak of summer when his Classics tutor throws out this question. It’s one of those days when the sun will kind of flirt with the horizon, but never really commit. Viktor’s staring out the window, running through the arpeggios in the first movement in his head, muting out his teacher’s voice with the accompaniment from imaginary flutes, clarinets, and horns instead. He has to physically shake his head back into the lesson. “Pardon?”

With the patience of a saint, she asks again, “Have you ever given much thought to love?”

Viktor thinks of Makkachin, and of Taiga, and how humans in general just don’t deserve the love that dogs give them, really. He thinks of Yakov and Lilia, their infinite collective reservoir of patience, and how they’re never blatantly affectionate in front of him but there’s still a palpable undercurrent of intimacy in the words they don’t say, in the air of the spaces they share. He thinks of how the only competitor from Switzerland who made it to the final round in Leeds, almost two years ago, asked him point-blank if he was ‘a boy or a girl’, and then ended up kissing him behind the curtains backstage anyway, even though Viktor never really answered the question. “ _Nyet._ ”

“Well, the Greeks distinguished between several different kinds of love, and assigned different words for each of them.” She talks at length about _storge_ , familial love and instinctual affection, and then about _philia_ , friendship, brotherly love.

She mentions _eros_ \-- passionate love, pleasure after pleasure so great one could drown in it, a ‘madness from the gods’. Plato said that _eros_ helps the soul to remember beauty in its pure form, and that it can ‘contribute to an understanding of truth’. Viktor remembers some very stupid decisions following a concert in Sochi that involved a bartender with the most stunning green eyes and sinful lips, and draws a large ‘?’ on the margin of his lecture notes.

“Last and greatest of these is _agape_ \-- unconditional love,” she tells him. “God’s infinite love is self-sacrificing and uncalculating. It can be a parent’s love, but not in the same sense as _storge_. _Agape_ is universal, a love that transcends and serves, regardless of circumstances.”

Viktor frowns. Perhaps it’s from having sat through so many of these conversations in his lifetime, but he knows the comparison she wants to make. Luckily, something on Viktor’s face seems to stop her, because she takes one look at his expression, hesitates, and then promptly moves on with the lesson.

The Russian maternal mortality rate was 63 deaths for 100,000 live births in 1990, the closest he could get to his birth year. That number is burned into his brain because he looked it up one time and thought that that should be a really, _really_ small number. Still, it’s not zero, and there’s an entire lifetime, an entire universe of a difference between zero and even _one_.

 _So brave of her_ , they all said. They still keep saying it. _So noble, to make that ultimate sacrifice._

There are many things Viktor doesn’t understand, and there are things he sometimes thinks he might never understand. Among them is how all of these people can just _say_ that, everyone from his aunts and uncles, to the staff, to his tutors, to Papa’s business associates who come over once every holiday season and drink entirely too much to not trip over the boundaries between themselves and their co-worker’s teenage son. How can they know that, how can they be so sure? And maybe he gets the romanticized notions of it, on some level, but were any of them actually living in her head when it happened? How was any of this her choice? She must have wanted to _live_.

Right?

 

 

 

_xx:_

The next time he thinks of Mama, he’s in the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas, and it’s already the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In the build-up towards the end of the third and last movement, with his left hand vigorously playing extremely fast octaves, he splices away a tiny part of his mind that’s otherwise laser-focused on remembering which notes and chords come next, to remember why he’s here.

2,056 pairs of eyes are on him from inside this concert hall alone -- he has no idea how many are watching the live stream. He can feel the judges’ cold stares, watching to see if they can punish him for more than the signature trills he inserted earlier into the movement. The press is here too, he thinks, because record-breakers make for excellent headlines. Yakov is here. Lilia is here.

Papa is here.

It should be perfect. He should have everything he needs to bring this tribute home. But it’s been taking everything he has just to play this, and he realizes that it’s not just that he’s forgotten -- he literally cannot afford to think of _agape_ at all.

 _Help me,_ he begs of the beast that he met as a child at three, this massive being of wood, metal, and acrylic plastic that would become his first friend. _Just a little more. Please._

The final bar sees him tearing his hands away from the keys with a gasp. He hears the applause, but it sounds like it’s filtered through something -- cotton, or water, something nameless that envelopes him as he sits with his head bowed and tries to fight back tears of disappointment. _Sorry Mama_ , he wants to say. _I failed. I’m so sorry._

It’s the tapping of the conductor’s baton against the lid of the piano that pulls him out of it. Steeling himself, Viktor rises to his feet, walks to the center of the stage, and flips his braid over his shoulder before taking a bow.

Viktor meets Papa’s eyes when he straightens himself up again. He’s not on his feet, but he’s clapping at least twice as hard as Yakov is… and he’s _smiling_.

Maybe that’s something.

Maybe that’s enough.

 

* * *

 

A week later, after Viktor’s mostly recovered from the jet lag, Papa throws a feast in their home. This is the first time in the past eight years that Viktor’s seen the formal dining room in use. Also: he doesn’t know 90% of these people, but those that aren’t family -- and he includes Yakov and Lilia as family now -- look important, somehow.

“My son, Vitya, has brought me much pride,” Papa declares. “Five international championships in five years. His accomplishments will ensure that his name, _our_ name, will live on for years and years and years.” He raises his glass. “To my son -- who was born to make history!”

Viktor doesn’t know how long Papa will be staying in St. Petersburg -- they never really discussed this, now that he thinks about it. He’s gotten so used to living with Yakov, and to Papa never being home before that anyway, that he just assumes it’s only a matter of time now as well. Same as it’s always been.

Papa’s drinking a lot tonight, Viktor notices. He stares at the small glass in his own hand, cold from the freezer-chilled vodka and nothing else in it. He brings it to his lips, tries, and winces.

It tastes awful.

 

 

 

_xxi:_

Papa stays home a lot after that day -- which is ironic, because _Viktor_ is the one who has to travel often over the next couple of years.

Concerts for the Cliburn tour are honestly a blur. He comes out of the circuit with a better appreciation for business class legroom, a perfect _La Campanella,_ and a few more nights’ worth of stupid decisions brought on by pretty eyes and prettier words. This last one is hard; it’s a complex, confusing game of smiles, glances, words and not-words that he doesn’t have a score or a theory book for. But he’s never in a single city long enough to form any meaningful connections, so maybe it’s a necessary evil.

He still technically lives with Yakov -- that’s where all his things are, and that’s where Makkachin stays. Sometimes he’ll spend some time at the family home -- a weekend here and there, or a few days with Makkachin in tow when Yakov has to travel. Papa practically spends all of that time in his study, which isn’t a surprise and never has been.

So he’s not sure what he’s expecting, or what exactly it is he’s feeling when he plays to an empty house and finds himself wondering what the difference is between this and a hotel piano at his next engagement, and why he still comes here. He’s not sure what it is he’s still looking for.

 

 

 

_xxii:_

Viktor really should have realized it much sooner, but he was always preoccupied, and always in the dark. The first one is his fault, mostly, but the second one is because no-one ever _tells_ him anything. It’s like Yakov probably thinks his resolve will falter the moment he allows a single non-musical thought to take too deep of a root in his mind, and the staff all think he’s still a fucking three-year-old: the poor boy, brave Anna’s precious baby son to be doted on and protected, shielded from ugly things like maternal mortality rates and the concept of house arrest.

"Oh, Vitya. So beautiful, the gods must have forgotten to grace you in other faculties.” Aunt Sofia has always had an obsidian tongue: it cuts you so fine, you don’t feel it until you’ve already bled out. “It's alright, you're forgiven. You're locked up all day with only Mr. Feltsman and his Steinway for company, no? Don't worry your pretty head over matters of the world."

 

 

 

_xxiii:_

Papa attends his last performance for the Cliburn tour, which happens to be in St. Petersburg. It’s a ‘coming home’ concert, so to speak. His final piece is Rach 3 in its entirety again, which comes as a lot less of a surprise to people than he thought it would.

He barely makes his way through it. And yet, when he faces the audience, he gets nothing but love. The part of him that’s always eager to please revels in the full standing ovation; the rest of him doesn’t understand.

Why can’t he feel it? What is he doing wrong?

Papa’s hired a limo to take them home, insisting that Vitya come over to celebrate. “A smaller party, just family and close friends,” he promises, by which of course he means _his_ friends, because Makkachin isn’t invited. Viktor agrees if only because there’s a conversation with Yakov that he’s avoiding, about a very blank space next to _‘goal for 2010’_ now that he’s won… well, practically everything he can win. He knows it’s an issue he needs to address eventually, and while postponing it definitely isn’t the same as addressing it, in the short term they feel the same, and this is easier for now.

The limo has a bar, but Papa’s already drunk before they even step in. Viktor can tell because he’s more talkative and cheerful than usual, and because the limo has scarcely pulled out onto the street when he takes a flask out of his jacket pocket, ignores the incredibly hurt look Viktor shoots him, and tells him to _‘drink, Vitya, drink’_. Vodka, he assures him, helps you to _appreciate_ art. And it leaves you breathless, he says.

Viktor takes a sip with a grimace. Papa laughs, and claps him on the back.

 

* * *

 

He comes home tired that night, ready to call it a day the moment he steps through the doors. It’s not the kind of exhaustion that sits in your bones and makes them ache when you wake up in the morning. It’s something else -- something that makes Viktor’s head feel clouded, like he’s walking through static every time he’s in a quiet room. He feels the beginning of a headache, brewing. He wishes he had Makkachin here.

He walks up to the massive mirror in the great room, and starts clawing through his braid to undo it. He doesn’t bother to turn on the lights here because the light leaking in from the foyer is enough, and the chandelier will do no favors for his headache. Neither does this braid, nor the tugging, but it’s slow going -- his hair’s down to his waist now whenever it’s braided, and even lower than that when it’s not.

He’s not sure at which point Papa comes up from behind him, holding a too-full glass of red wine. He mumbles something Viktor can’t hear while pointing at his hair, and Viktor says, “I know, I know. I’m overdue for a haircut. Maybe next month.”

Papa takes a huge gulp of his wine.

Viktor ignores him until he starts tugging at the braid too. His hand is too rough and too careless, and Viktor pulls away with a wince.

“It’s fine, I’ve got this… thanks.” _You’re too drunk._ “You should go to bed.”

Papa doesn’t, though. The hand that finds its way onto Viktor’s shoulder feels all wrong.

And the name that he slurs is unmistakable.

He’s not entirely sure what happens in the few seconds that follow. All he knows is how it ends: wine spilled all over the carpet, Viktor with his back pressed against the opposite wall, far, far away from the other man.

It just… it just seems so painfully _obvious_ now, all of a sudden. The world shifts, and for a moment he feels like he’s going to be violently sick.

When that moment passes, tears have already started streaming down his cheeks.

“Is that it? All my life, you never…” Viktor swallows hard, trembling. “You still love her so much.”

“…Of course I do.”

“So I guess… it makes sense, then. That you can’t stand the person who took her away from you. Right?”

His father’s voice comes out strained. “Vitya, now is not the best time to talk about this -- ”

“No, now is the best time!” What better time than now, when he’s drunk and honest and everything’s pretty much gone to hell already or on its way there? “It’s true, isn’t it? It’s always been.”

Papa lets out a long, tired sigh. Viktor can’t see his face from here, because of the darkness in the room, and because the man refuses to meet his eyes. Viktor isn’t sure he doesn’t prefer it this way.  

“I don’t hate you, Vitya. It’s just -- ”

“Stop. I changed my mind.” He can taste salt in the back of his throat. He can’t remember a time when he’s felt this stupid. _So stupid_. “You don’t have to finish that sentence.”

It’s hard to stop his mind from trying to process what he’s just realized… or maybe he realized it long ago, and was just denying it all this time. He can’t help it either way -- _this,_ and accepting this, end up re-contextualizing every conversation, every choice he’s ever made for the past twenty-three years. He doesn’t have to recall each one of them because the result is the same: it never mattered. None of it did.

Viktor never wanted to know Papa’s love if it was only out of pity, or out of instinct from whatever cold, inescapable programming _storge_ is supposed to demand. He would have been happy to earn it, even though he shouldn’t have had to. For so long he thought that if he just strived harder, reached further, worked and suffered and played better, until he became the very best at the only thing he was ever good for in this life, maybe that would do it for him.

“You remind me very much of her.”

But that’s not enough, is it? It’s never enough. “If you had to choose that day… which one of us…” His voice is shaking because _he’s_ shaking, and he feels impossibly cold. Vodka is supposed to warm you up, isn’t it? What a treacherous lie that is. “You… you would’ve chosen her, right?”

“You were a stranger to me then. You can’t expect me to have been attached right away, especially after -- ”

“And now?” Viktor cuts in, his voice pitched hatefully high, needy, despite his best efforts. “What if you could make that same choice now?”

It’s not fair. It’s not fair of him to ask this question, but maybe this conversation is already eight years too late. Maybe even more than that.

It’s not fair because he already knows the answer anyway.

“You have to understand, Vitya…” Papa’s voice wavers, and Viktor can almost hear his throat jerk when he says, “She was the one good thing I had in my life.”

_Never enough. Never enough._

“Vitya, wait. I didn’t mean…”

Viktor doesn’t even realize he’s already walking, but he doesn’t stop. He makes it half-blind to the main road despite his vision still swimming with tears, and he just keeps walking. He wraps his arms around himself because he forgot to grab a jacket, but like hell is he going back there now.

Just like with a million other things, he should have recognized it earlier. At least then he wouldn’t have wasted so much effort, so much time.

He accepts it now: he never stood a chance from the start.

 

* * *

 

“I’m imploring you to give this more thought.”

Viktor doesn’t say anything to that, but he does stop walking. As he turns around, he catches a glimpse of the sun dipping into the horizon beneath the river, large and listless. He doesn’t have any gloves on him, so he stuffs his hands into his pockets.

Summer’s ending.

“This isn’t a decision you can just make at the drop of a hat,” Yakov insists. “I keep telling you, you love to rush into things.”

“I’ve been thinking about this for years,” Viktor murmurs. “Just, not entirely consciously, I guess. If that makes any sense.”

He crouches down to lean on the railing of the bridge, and watches the water. He’s going to miss this view, he thinks to himself, and he really should have gotten to know the city more when he had the chance. That’s the thing with regret, whether insignificant or completely earth-shattering: by the time you acknowledge it, it’s too late.

Viktor’s already made up his mind, though. St. Petersburg is home, and right now as he savors the wind on his face, it feels like it might always be home. But he can’t stay here anymore -- his idea of home has been corrupted now, and it doesn’t even matter if that should have happened years ago, if only he were paying attention. It doesn’t matter; he can’t stay. Not here where, no matter what he accomplishes with his life, he’ll forever only be someone’s son, someone’s killer, someone’s tragedy.

“Do I owe you any money? Is there any paperwork I need to do?” A bitter chuckle slips out of him. “Papa always wanted to do this formally. He was always on top of these things, but I never…”

“Don’t worry about any of that.” Yakov is the only person who can tell him that without vexing him, because somehow Yakov is the only person who makes it sound sincere. Viktor has known him long enough to recognize any underlying shock, or anger, or panic in his voice -- he hears none of that today, which Viktor takes to mean that he must have seen this coming too. “Vitya. If you leave now -- ”

“What, I can never come back?”

“Don’t be foolish. You can come back any time.” Yakov sighs, and after a long, tormented moment of hedging on what to say, he looks like he’s just decided to accept the inevitable. “Was there anything… anything at all that I could have done?”

There’s an ache in Viktor’s chest that he can’t measure when he walks over and wraps the other man in a tight hug.  

“You are the best teacher I could have ever hoped for,” he whispers, meaning every word of it. He plants a light kiss on Yakov’s cheek. “ _Do svidanya_. I’m sorry I can’t do as you say this time.”

“When have you ever done as I say?” Yakov snorts, but grudgingly returns the embrace anyway. He pulls back when a stronger gust of wind blows Viktor’s hair into his face -- it doesn’t take much anymore, now that Viktor’s had it cropped to his neck and donated the rest. “What should I tell Vasily?”

Until the very end, it seems Yakov knows him better than he thought. “That I’m sorry for everything I’ve done.” If he will understand nothing else, he hopes Papa will at least understand that.

 

* * *

 

That evening, Viktor hears the seagulls for the last time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Mozart: [12 Variations in C Major on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" K.265](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS7yiD6cz8A) performed by Walter Klien  
> \- Mozart: [Piano Sonata no. 11 in A, K. 331, Mov. 3 (Turkish March)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UvGf13H6wQ) by Jeno Jando | Bonus: and [here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXjbz4TQOyM) a version played by an actual 6-year-old!  
> \- Mendelssohn: [Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GGx8TRWFVA) by Yuja Wang with Kurt Masur and the Verbier Festival Orchestra  
> \- Chopin: [Étude Op. 10, No. 3](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmQBFLJAIcY) performed by Murray Perahia | [Tino Rossi’s ‘Tristesse’](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4P1FpRwgBU), with the same melody  
> \- Debussy: [Arabesque No. 1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6s49OKp6aE). This version by Stephen Malinkowsky includes an animated score that’s lovely to look at, and the visual representation adds a new dimension that makes me appreciate the song even more than I already do (which is: a lot. I love this piece).  
> \- Rachmaninoff: [Prelude in C# Minor](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-qwJoFQ3qo) played by Silvia Capova  
> \- Chopin: [Nocturne No. 20 in C# Minor, Op. posth](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hyAOYMUVDs). I don’t know who the performer is for this one though -- does anyone know?  
> \- Liszt: [Étude No. 3 in G# Minor, Allegretto (“La Campanella”)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEnfZjqMSy0) by Yundi Li  
> \- Chopin: [Mazurka in D Major, Op. 33 No. 2](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LkXsnEEQmE) played by Vladimir Horowitz
> 
> This is the first half of what was supposed to be a single Viktor-centric chapter, except I ended up splitting it into two because (1) it was getting a LOT longer than I’d planned, and (2) this seemed like a decent place to stop, but also (3) I kind of like the number 14, which is the new target now.
> 
> Thanks and beyond to @Pigfarts23 who not only listened to my rantings this time around, but also up and wrote up a 40+++ page handbook/textbook to help this clueless outsider through the music theory. Which I just. Wow~ (/Viktor-voice) All the love :)
> 
> And speaking of music, here’s [another playlist](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1Rw0FqbhdFClF-wG-rYCaIXoFF92Cxyu) that puts all the piano / non-jazz pieces together in one place. Like the other one, it will be updated as I go.
> 
> (Next chapter: We meet Georgi, Mila, Leo, and some others -- including a drunk figure skater who makes his grand entrance into Viktor’s life with all the delicacy of an avalanche.)


	8. (Improvisation: Piano Solo /2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New tags/warnings, please be guided.

Viktor’s first day in Rome starts in the thick of a thunderstorm, and finding his way out of the airport turns into an adventure in and of itself. He thinks, if this is a portent of things to come, then it’s a terrible one.

He spends most of the journey in a cab that he swears cost more than it should have, but he’s still drenched by the time he arrives at the hotel. He ignores the concierge’s pointed stare, and the relentless vibrating in his pocket that goes on until his phone’s battery drains. The bed sits three full strides away from the door, and it’s a bit too small to accommodate both him and Makkachin comfortably. But he doesn’t have the heart to make her sleep on the floor.

That night, he stares up into the darkness and tries to keep the anxiety at bay. This is _crazy_. These past few days have been a blur, and he can no longer remember why he ended up choosing Rome in the end, but it wasn’t the brightest of choices because he doesn’t speak a lick of the language here. He has this hotel room for four days; after that, who knows? Any day now, his father might cut him off, if he hasn’t already. Which is fine, Viktor kept the money from competitions and concerts in a private account that Yakov set up for him a long time ago, but that’s definitely not going to last forever.

Yet, alone and exhausted as he is, fumbling with everything that was routine and familiar suddenly ripped out of his life, he can’t quite explain why all of this feels a lot like… bliss.

 

* * *

 

It turns out there’s _technically_ no law against busking in Italy. He finds this out from his new landlady’s son a few months after leaving Russia, and by now he’s gone through a full cycle of panic, then regret, then rejection of that regret until all that’s left is a dogged determination to see this through. He’s already made it this far, and he’s nothing if not stubborn. Pride’s good for something, sometimes.

Still, he’s spent his entire life honing and focused on developing exactly one skill, which doesn’t leave him with too many options in terms of earning some semblance of a living. So he asks, and he learns that there’s nothing prohibiting it outright, just considerations for nuisance and possibly copyright, and the off-chance that he might run into officials who don’t actually know the bylaws they’re supposed to enforce.

Viktor thinks that’s good enough for him. He buys a portable keyboard from a shop that sells refurbished electronics, and picks a random platform in the closest metro station he can walk to that isn’t already on another musician’s turf. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it; he comes when he pleases, which turns out to be a significant chunk of the week (because: what else does he do with his free time?) and plays whatever he wants. Mostly classical pieces, piano sonatas and arrangements Yakov made for orchestral pieces that have made a home for themselves in the core of his mind, what with how long and how often he practiced them.

Before long, Viktor has a handful of regular sets going, each piece tailored so that, with a little bit of wiggle room, the lulls and breaks come at around the time he feels the telltale rumbling, and the train rolls into the station. The money is decent too, and he finds that people tend to be even more generous on days he brings Makkachin along.

He meets Raphael this way. Near the end of an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday night, he finds a well-dressed man with salt-and-pepper hair staring at him. Viktor only notices because the same man has let two trains go by. And when the second train has completely pulled out of the station, the man approaches.

“ _Tutta la musica eseguita, o che può essere eseguita, o è di mia invenzione o ha origini tradizionali,_ ” he calls out flatly. He has to tap into about 50% of the functional Italian that he knows, but this isn’t the first time Viktor’s had to make this disclaimer that none of what he’s playing falls under copyright protection. Hell, it’s not even the first time this week.

The man chuckles. “What, you think I’m going to arrest you?” Viktor has no idea why he chose to switch to English, but he’s grateful for it. “I’m not with the police.” At Viktor’s silence, he continues: “My name is Raphael. I was just wondering… if I could make a request. Ah, something from Rossini?”

Viktor stares at him. He has to expend a bit of effort to parse the man’s words through his accent, but even beneath that, he doesn’t know what to do with the curious request. _This_ is a first time.

“Too cliché?” He lets out that same chuckle again -- it starts soft and light, but rolls into something richer, like it’s settled in his belly. “Let’s see… ah, you’ll have to be my lucky charm then. You are… Russian, yes?” Viktor nods. “Then, how about some Rachmaninoff?”

Viktor [ plays Rossini for him ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjEh3BZlkUc) without another word. It’s imperfect, because he’s doing it from memory, and he can’t even remember the last time he played it -- was it at Lilia’s birthday party, or during one of the concerts for the Cliburn tour? Either way, it’s been so long, but at least nobody’s grading him here. He tries not to notice Raphael smiling as he watches him, and so he doesn’t notice -- not consciously, anyway, -- when the man’s gaze drifts from his fingers on the keyboard, to somewhere around the vicinity of his face.

He leaves Viktor a ridiculous tip when the next train rolls in, calls out a cheerful _‘Ciao_ ’ that lingers in Viktor’s ears for far longer than it should, and exits his life for that day.

It takes two more repeats of this incident over the next week before Raphael finally asks him out for coffee.

 

* * *

 

The nice thing about what their relationship eventually becomes is that there are no labels between them. Raphael is an early retiree who has a taste for truffles and whiskey that was distilled in the 60s. He wears a watch that would wipe out the entirety of Viktor’s personal account, and then some, if he had to buy it -- but he doesn’t, because Raphael pays for everything whenever they go out, and springs ‘little’ gifts on Viktor when the spirit moves him.

He owns a penthouse apartment in Rome, and whenever Viktor comes over he ends up staying the night. It shouldn’t be hard at all to come up with a label for what their relationship is. Really, there’s only one that Viktor can think of.

But Raphael never forces him into that box. “What we are to each other, it’s…” He stops to think, his lips twitching as he lets out a careless hum. “Does it have to be something or another? We’re having fun. I enjoy your company, as I hope you do mine.” He shrugs. “Does a man really need to ask for more?”

Maybe not, Viktor thinks as he stares at the sunlight filtered through the blinds, which have painted streaks of white across the opposite wall. He’s plucking small feathers out of one of the small decorative pillows when he feels the bed shift. As he’s wont to do, Raphael puts on a record before heading to the bathroom.

[ From the very first bar, ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynEOo28lsbc) he can already tell that this is going to be different from Raphael’s usual taste of grand string masterpieces. A clarinet gives the soaring introduction, for one. But it’s the piano, reckless, like tap dance on the keys, that gives him pause. “…Huh.”

“What was that?” Raphael pokes his head out through the open bathroom door, mumbling over a mouthful of toothpaste. “Did you say something?”

“I said ‘huh’,” Viktor admits. He’s staring at the empty, mustard-yellow sleeve near the record player. “’ _Rhapsody in Blue_ ’,” he reads.

He doesn’t even register the other man’s presence until Raphael’s already got his chin on Viktor’s shoulder. “Do you like it?”

“I think so.” Viktor tilts his head. “It’s interesting. Yeah.”

“Unbelievable.” The word comes out through a laugh that dies too soon. “You have the same taste.”

He always suspected, but this confirms it. Long before Viktor entered Raphael’s life, there was another man, and that man was supposed to be ‘forever’. And he was, to an extent, because when you’re comparing a handful of months to 20-odd years, well, is there really much of a difference? ‘Til death do us part’ was promised and fulfilled, and now all that’s left of that other man is his favorite records, his paintings decorating the hallways, and memories Viktor will never be able to compete with.

Which is all well and good. It’s not like he wants to, anyway. So he doesn’t ask, and Raphael doesn’t bring it up again.

 

* * *

 

Raphael spoils him. He buys him clothes and books and everything in between, always wrapping the gifts in sweet words like _‘I saw this and thought you’d like it’_ , or _‘I think this would look great on you’_. He takes him to fancy restaurants with mile-long waiting lists where the hostesses always know him by name, and where dinner is less a meal and more a four-hour experience. He spoils Makkachin too, and that in itself would have been more than enough for him to win Viktor’s favor.

He buys Viktor an upright piano for Christmas, and he actually _apologizes_ because it’s secondhand, from one of their neighbors downstairs -- her husband passed away, you see, and he was the only one who played in the household. He isn’t sure if it’s been tuned recently, and if it was, then the elevator might have jostled it. Viktor blinks back tears and squashes away the rest of his apologies with a searing kiss.

He takes Viktor to the opera, once. Something in the soaring vocals and the melody, thick with emotion, inspires him, lingering in the back of his mind as they walk out of the theater. But it’s something else that takes hold of him hours later, long after dinner and dessert, and then _dessert_ have gone by. That ‘something else’ has him sitting up in bed well past midnight, with the keyboard he still sometimes uses for busking on his lap over the covers, headphones plugged into it while he plays with the idea of composing an aria.

He’s never composed anything before. There were always other things to do, pieces to learn and practice, prizes to win, and although it could have been, it was just never a priority. Perhaps Yakov thought it might happen at some point, because he did reference it a couple of times in passing, between lessons. It’s not as though he doesn’t have the foundations for it already; if music is poetry, then notes and triads and seventh chords are words he’s been reading for 20 years, and as he’s already learned, 20 years is not all that different from forever.

The piece starts off slow because _he_ starts off slow, and the wariness with this first time finds itself translated into the choices he makes as he fills in notes on paper by hand. He supports low chords with an upper voice that then breaks off into eighth note runs in the right hand. The melody peaks, before a solid chord in the downbeat of the left hand grounds it.

If nothing else will come of this, then at the very least, it’s an exercise to practice his Italian.

 _Sento una voce che piange lontano_ _  
_ _Anche tu, sei stato forse abbandonato?_

His right hand carries the lyrical melody, his left hand most of the chording. He puts in a slur with the right hand ascending between these lines, and wonders if Yakov would think he’s playing it smoothly enough.

 _Orsù finisca presto questo calice di vino_  
_e inizio a prepararmi_ _  
_ Adesso fa’ silenzio

“What is this?” Raphael’s voice cuts through his concentration, laced with sleep but teasing nonetheless. “Are you composing something for me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Viktor jokes back. He didn’t realize he was singing that loud; he could have sworn he was doing it under his breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Raphael hums, and shakes his head. “Don’t apologize. You have the voice of an angel.”

“Stop it,” Viktor laughs.

“But you do. Though, I suppose I can temper it by saying you have the lips of a – ”

Viktor lobs one of the pillows at him, but he’s laughing too hard for it to have any real force behind it.

 

 

 

_xxiv:_

But good things are like summers in St. Petersburg: they all come to an end someday.

“It’s Stage IV,” is all that Viktor remembers hearing. The rest of it fades into white noise, static in his ears, because -- it’s Tuesday, and they’re having breakfast, and just two sentences ago Viktor was throwing around the idea of taking a trip to Venice. One sentence ago he was asking Raphael if he was going to eat that untouched _cornetto_ on his plate, and so how in the world did they get to this?

Raphael is calm about it all, somehow. The small smile on his face remains unchanging as Viktor struggles to process what all of this means, and the warmth of his hand provides some small comfort when he sets Viktor free.

He’s decided to go back to his hometown, so he can spend his last days there. “I want to die with the sun on my face and the ghosts of my ancestors rising from the fields to greet me,” he whispers. “But you will survive, won't you, Viktor?”

Of course he will. He has to. The fact that their relationship doesn’t have its own neat, clear label cuts both ways, and that’s why Viktor can’t go with him. But this is just the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? What kind of a question is that?

Still, at the back of his throat, on a precipice, teeter those same selfish words: _please don’t leave me._ He tastes salt when he swallows.

 

* * *

 

The day after Raphael leaves, Viktor stays one last night in the penthouse. The tenant who’ll be moving in next week doesn’t speak any of the languages Viktor knows, but they bought the apartment as-is, furnishings and all. Everything’s exactly as it was, untouched and familiar; he brings Makkachin along and lets her sleep in the bed, because otherwise he’s not sure he won’t suddenly wake up in the middle of the night, expecting Raphael to come out from behind the corner, announcing through that rumbling laugh of his that it was all just a joke.

In the morning, Viktor puts on a record and sits at the balcony, stirring absentmindedly at his coffee but always forgetting to take a sip. By the time that record finishes, his cup is still full.

Sighing, he takes it all back inside and goes to switch the record. The mustard yellow of the jacket that he grabs gives him pause: there it is again, _Rhapsody in Blue_.

He takes a seat at the desk while the opening clarinet _glissando_ fills the room. And then, because he doesn’t have anything else to do, he beckons Makkachin closer and starts cooing music theory at her while stroking her ears. “That was a rising diatonic scale. Yes it was.” He laughs as the thumping of her tail against the floor coincides with a few down beats. “The opening modulates ‘downwards’, see -- we start in B flat, but then we go to E flat. Then A flat, D flat, G flat… B, E, then finally A major. Do you hear it?”

Maybe it was inevitable, with this self-imposed exercise, that his thoughts eventually wander to the man who taught him 99% of all the music theory he knows. Curious, he looks up Yakov Feltsman on his phone.

He skips through all the articles when he sees that there’s a recent video of some performance he gave in Moscow. He keeps his phone on mute, because _Rhapsody_ is still playing, and because he needs neither the sound nor the video description to recognize the opening to that Mendelssohn concerto he’s always loved. Yakov plays like he teaches, strict and unforgiving like the world would end if he ever strayed once from the metronome, but without any of the cold dispassion people might associate with that kind of perfectionism. He’s lost some more hair since Viktor last saw him, it seems.

But when he lifts his hands after the long solo in the opening, raises his head to face the orchestra, and starts waving his arms -- oh. Oh, wow. That’s new.

What isn’t: the man’s phone number, as he learns on the fifth ring, because today is a day of impulsive decisions. “Yakov!” he calls out cheerfully. “ _Come stai?_ ”

It goes… about as he expected. Yakov gives him an earful about going almost a full year without any word -- wow, has it really been that long? -- and how he could have at least called for the holidays. Viktor protests weakly that he sent a postcard with the view of Rome from the Gianicolo at sunrise, and did he not see the hand-drawn sketch of Makkachin’s face at the back of it?

There’s silence on the line as the opening to _Rhapsody_ ends. That’s when he learns that Yakov no longer lives at that house; he and Lilia have divorced, and she took it in the settlement… ‘among other things’.

“The Steinway?” he asks in a fearful whisper, clutching at his chest.

 _“Nyet. That, I kept.”_ Yakov snorts over the line. _“I would have died before letting her have that too.”_

Viktor sighs in relief. “I’m glad. But you look like you’re doing well. Conducting suits you.”

_“Perhaps. And what about you, Vitya? Are you happy?”_

He looks around at the apartment, which suddenly looks a lot bigger than it’s always felt. He imagines laughter and kisses and unfinished arias, assurances that he will ‘survive’.  Makkachin rests her head on his lap, because she knows him well. “I’m fine.”

Yakov knows him well too. He knows when not to push, and Viktor likes that about him. He doesn’t talk about Papa, and he doesn’t dwell on the past, and on what could have been.

_“What’s that playing in the background? Gershwin?”_

“Yeah.”

_“Do you like it?”_

This conversation again. Maybe it’s a sign?

“…Yeah. I think so.”

 

* * *

 

 

There are a lot of steps that have to be taken, and a lot of bridges that have to be crossed, before talking to Yakov about Gershwin -- then about [ Ravel ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b4-rXhKpMM) and [ Milhaud ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3GPtgY9hSQ) and about half a dozen names that had been similarly inspired in the past -- turns into enrolling in a jazz conservatory in Paris. But that’s where he ends up, after an 80-odd page application and two rounds of auditions through video, and an email in his inbox formally inviting him to attend.

He’d let his hair grow as it pleased while he was in Italy, but this is no longer Italy, and he won’t be spending most of his time lounging alone in a rich man’s penthouse, or sitting mostly unnoticed in a metro station. Yakov gives him a similar warning. So he cuts his hair again, and dyes it black. He finds a pair of glasses with plain lenses in a drugstore, and when he walks out he wonders if maybe all of these precautions are just unnecessary paranoia.

Then he meets his roommate who’s poring over a class schedule, and the first words out of the man’s mouth are: “Viktor Nikiforov?”

Shit. “Ah… ahaha…” Damn it. “You’ve heard of me?”

“My father took the family to Moscow for the Tchaikovsky Competition the year you were competing. He said, ‘Russia might finally take home the crown’ that year, you know? And you proved him right! We -- ” The rapid-fire Russian stops as he catches himself, flushes a little in embarrassment, and holds out his hand. “Ah, forgive me, this must seem so rude. Georgi Popovich.”

Viktor shakes his hand, dumbfounded. At his feet, Makkachin lets out a happy little bark.

Georgi compensates by telling Viktor about himself: how his father always played the trumpet at home, and how it was inevitable that one of his five children take an interest in it. Georgi’s been playing mostly jazz all his life, and he’s here because in an attempt to appease his mother, he applied to both this conservatory and the local university for a Psychology program. Regrettably, he ‘lost’ the other application in the mail and ‘forgot’ to tell her.

“I can forget other things too, if you like.” His tone softens. “Such as your name. What do you want me to call you?”

“Huh?”

“Well… you are in hiding, right?” He motions at Viktor’s hair and face. “Or, hiding in plain sight. It makes sense.”

Why would it ‘make sense’? “How much do you know?” he asks carefully.

“Not much. The papers were very… muted, I think. Just that Vasily Nikiforov’s son retired from the competitive circuit, and left home to ‘pursue other ventures’.”

Viktor isn’t sure how he feels about that. It’s not untrue, of course, but it just feels… so clinical, so cold? But then he realizes those papers must have reached out to Papa for that comment, and all of a sudden, it makes perfect sense.

“Ah, I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable. It’s not too late to request for a room transfer, and I’ve not unpacked yet -- ”

“‘Viktor’ is fine,” he declares with a cheerful smile. He can’t keep running forever. Georgi seems nice and interesting enough, and if nothing else, being able to slip back into speaking Russian at the end of the day is more than welcome. “Say, have you had dinner yet?”

 

* * *

 

The learning curve for jazz ends up being quite a bit steeper than he’d like.

Viktor supposes he should count himself lucky that he already knows a lot of the theory, but there’s only so far he can go with it. Jazz is a far different animal from what he’s used to, with its proclivity for exotic chords, its ‘swing’, and its unique set of rules which are actually closer to ‘suggestions’ in the end. From the very start, he was always taught to play the notes first; finding and expressing the passion in the music would come later. Suddenly, there might not even be any notes to play at all, just fat chords staring back at him from the score, leaving him to fill in the rest.

_“To be clear, you do remember that you used to add trills and embellishments to your performances even though none of them were called for at the time, yes?”_

He’s called Yakov again, in a moment of weakness. “You always hated when I did that.”

_“That never seemed to matter to you then, so it should hardly matter now. More importantly, how did you choose when to deviate from the sheet music?”_

Viktor hums at the ceiling, trying to remember. Was it _La Campanella_ he was playing when that all began? “Whenever I found some parts boring,” he eventually admits, “that’s usually when I’d do them.” There were other factors too, of course, but those would vary from piece to piece; this seemed like the common denominator.

_“And how would you decide the actual composition of those substitutions?”_

He frowns. It’s… not as easy of a question as it sounds, the more he thinks about it. Was there ever really any logic to it? He tries to recall what was going on in his head during those moments, in practice and in competition, but he draws a blank. And it’s not because they all happened a lifetime ago, but rather… “I just went with… whatever sounded nice.” He blinks. “Is that… is that all there is to it?”

No, as it turns out. Of course not.

But it’s good enough for a place to start. He doubles down on the theory, polishing off his working knowledge of various dominant, suspended, diminished, augmented, 6ths, and other chords galore. He studies improvisations from the greats and finds himself analyzing II-V-I licks like his very life depends on it. He listens to jazz -- _so much jazz_ , so little time -- while reading about its history, the colorful tapestry of choice and circumstance, and creativity, that shaped an entire movement.

An afternoon in Paris is spent dissecting [ _Afternoon in Paris_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMLUGR-Pys8), obsessing over its harmonic structure and listening, and _listening_ , until the piano’s frantic magic transforms into chord progressions and scales in his head. He puts himself through rhythm exercises that start on C playing semitones on quarter notes, and somehow wind up with cycles of fifths on 32nd notes in the end, and Georgi asking if he’s a masochist.

At some point, it all starts to come together. And when he realizes how much of jazz is entwined in its improvisations, its color and rhythm and substitution -- all of these, in the hands of a competent musician, potent agents of _surprise_ \-- that’s all it takes, and he’s all in.

He starts small at first. While he’s playing he might dance around a key before committing to it, nothing too adventurous: a half-step up here, a half-step down there. Later, he experiments with more complicated melodic shapes, until he reaches a point where he’s changing scale with every new chord, just because it’s more sophisticated that way. It takes time, but before he knows it he’s exploiting octave jumps to fabricate calls and responses, and slinging tritone substitutions like no tomorrow.

And once he gets over the growing pains -- when he shakes off the stiffness and hesitation that made his initial improvisations so awkward, and when he finally feels at home playing with swing -- it’s fun. Good God, but it’s so much fun. Months turn and he’s jamming with Georgi at 2 in the morning with Makkachin howling along, and he finds himself thinking: _I could do this for the rest of my life._

 

* * *

 

Still, school is school, and not everyday is going to be fun jam sessions and eureka moments; sometimes it’s midterm week, where he’s just walked out of a three-hour exam on sound synthesis. There aren’t too many places close to campus where one can decompress after a long day -- not that Viktor isn’t keen to explore the rest of the city, but on some days there just isn’t much time or energy left for any of that. This is one of those days.

So tonight, he finds himself alone in a bar a few blocks away from campus, because Georgi’s out on a date with a girl who plays the clarinet, and Viktor hasn’t yet come to feel comfortable with the thought of drinking at home alone. He can’t hear the music because the acoustics are horrible, and there’s so much chatter from the patrons around him that he could drown in it. The bartender takes away his empty glass, and he orders a vodka tonic; it’s his third of the night, but he feels fine. He’s been religious with his chasers.

A cheer goes up somewhere behind him. When he turns around, he sees a corner table full of suits. They’re all drunk beyond belief, and he can’t even count how many empty bottles are on their table. One of them, a tall, solidly-built man with untamed curls and a suit jacket with the sleeves tied together around his neck like a cape, suddenly climbs onto the top of the table. He teeters precariously for a few seconds before steadying himself, momentarily forgets what he got up there for, and then raises his half-empty wine glass.

“Gentlemen!” he announces. “A toast! To… to what, exactly?” Much boisterous laughter erupts from his colleagues, or at least Viktor assumes that’s what they are. “To our hometowns! Because if we’re all jobless on Monday, that’s where we’re ending up.”

They cheer again. Viktor doesn’t really get the full story -- despite how close they are, the rest of the bar is still making so much noise, and it’s hard to parse through their slurred French -- but it’s something about a bank, and something about most of the men around the table having put their signatures on something that was a ‘terrible fucking idea’. They drink half like they’re celebrating and half like they’re doomed, which makes for an interesting kind of morbid humor. If nothing else, it’s an entertaining sight.

Viktor suddenly finds the man who made the toast very close to him. He’s ordering shots from the bartender.

And then the man is looking at him. Oh shit, was he staring? Damn it. “Hello.”

The man stares back at him, looking kind of bewildered. “Hi?”

Okay. This is a start. “Nice speech. Back there.”

“Thanks.” He blinks. Under the bar’s low light, Viktor can’t decide if the man’s eyes are green, or some very light shade of brown. “Oh shit, you’re not from work, are you? Are you on the trading floor? Fuck, I am _so_ fired.”

“Nothing like that,” he assures him. “I didn’t understand half of what you were saying.”

“So… you’re just a guy at the bar.”

“Just a guy at the bar. I’m Viktor.”

He looks down and stares at the hand that Viktor’s offering. That’s odd, because Viktor didn’t remember holding his hand out at all. “Wait. Are you hitting on me?”

Viktor lets out a nervous laugh. Is he? “Maybe. Is it working?”

Definitely green, he tells himself, when the man just ends up staring at him some more. For two people who’ve exchanged what feels like five words with each other, they’ve sure had a lot of eye contact. Viktor breaks it to map the contours of his face, the light stubble peppering his jaw, the way a curl of his hair winds around his left ear.

Then his shots arrive. He knocks one back, places the empty shot glass on the counter, and  leaves.

_Ouch._

Viktor takes the loss in stride, and decides to quit while he’s ahead. After clearing his tab, he pulls on his jacket and starts on the short walk home.

He hopes the cold air will freshen his mind up a bit, because he’s got homework he’s been procrastinating on. He plugs in his earphones, and brings up the same track he’s been listening to all week: a popular French [ song ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt7y8y1Axcs) from the 1940s. The melody is instantly recognizable especially here, and he’s supposed to come up with a solo piano arrangement for it -- luck of the draw, literally, his teacher brought in a hat filled with slips of paper containing song titles. It’s due in less than a week, and he has no idea where to start.

And then a lone shoe comes sailing from somewhere behind him, and lands on the sidewalk near his feet.

“Hey!”

Viktor stops walking and picks it up before turning around, confused. The voice is hoarse, like the owner might have been yelling at him for some time. The man from the bar with the curly hair and penchant to stare is running to him -- awkwardly, because he’s missing a shoe.

He pulls his headphones out. “Um…”

“Sorry. I’m really sorry. Fuck -- this is so embarrassing. I’m going to kick myself for this in the morning.” He has to stop to catch his breath once he’s in front of Viktor. “Just, back at the bar… were you serious, back there? Because I _swear_ I thought you were just messing with me.”

Viktor blinks. “Why in the world would I do that?”

“People are assholes. I thought, maybe someone dared you. Or something. No way you’d be interested, I’m too… and you’re… you’re so…”

Viktor still doesn’t understand, but he hands him back the shoe with a smile. “Well… let’s try that again. My name’s Viktor.”

“Mathieu.” He stares at the shoe in his hands like he’s trying to process what exactly to do with it. “You are completely out of my league.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“Nope, but I know me.” Mathieu shrugs, and hops on one foot to put the shoe back on. “My, ah -- my landlady is super-religious, she doesn’t allow overnight guests. I can maybe get a room at one of the hotels nearby, but I seriously need a shower first. And a toothbrush. Fuck.” His eyes widen when he realizes exactly what he’s implied. “Uh, n-not that I’m saying that we should go straight to _that_. We can just hang out if you like!”

Viktor doesn’t even realize he’s already laughing. He can’t help it.

“Wait, I’m doing this all wrong. Tonight isn’t really -- I don’t really do much but work and work out. I can’t cook for shit, and I smoke like I’m trying to kill myself. If the work doesn’t kill me first, anyway.” Finally winning the war he’d started with his own shoe, Mathieu stands up to his full height and rubs at the back of his neck, staring resolutely at the sidewalk. “If you haven’t been turned off by all of that… shit, follow me? I guess?”

It’s not how romances usually start, he knows, but Viktor ends up doing just that.

 

* * *

 

Mathieu is a whirlwind wrapped in tweed suits, silk ties, and hair gel that does precious little to actually tame his curls. He wasn’t kidding about his work schedule: he practically lives on the bank’s trading floor, with his days starting at 7:30 a.m., and ending ‘whenever the work is done, except it never really is’. He’s usually had three coffees before he’s even out the door. But he’s also witty, and ridiculously funny, if a little vulgar, and he never fails to catch Viktor’s attention with the tales he spins about his colleagues, the bank’s clients, the tourists clogging the city sidewalks, and even his boss’s daughter’s silly little handbag dog that once ended up indirectly costing the bank 100,000 euros, give or take.

Mathieu, on the other hand, worships the ground Viktor walks on. He cycles through several terms of endearment and sweet, vain nicknames before Viktor asks him to stop. The first time he listens to Viktor play -- that [ piano arrangement ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLlEqTpBt2E) he eventually finished with a day to spare -- he bubbles with words that taste like wine, ‘stunning’ and ‘genius’ and ‘divine’. He kisses with reverence, and with a passion that suggests he’s got something to prove.

It’s too much, sometimes. Sorry, he says. It’s just that this is the first time he’s ever done something like this, and so he has no idea what he’s doing. Viktor agrees with him and says he’s the same, because ‘this’ can mean a hundred and one different things, and at least one of those must be true.

So there’s a learning curve to being in a relationship, just as there was (and still is, to an extent) a learning curve to jazz. Viktor tells him the truth about himself early on; he chooses an uneventful Monday night, and just blurts it out, like Raphael and his diagnosis. A few short, stunted sentences about his history on the competitive circuit, and a small entreaty to keep this knowledge to himself -- that’s all. He figures he might as well come clean now, before Mathieu looks him up online or somewhere else. Besides, what is love if it isn’t honest, right?

Mathieu doesn’t care about any of that, he says. All of that was in the past, and what matters is here and now. It’s a giant weight off Viktor’s shoulders.

“How the fuck did I ever get so lucky?”

Viktor laughs. “Stop saying that.”

“It’s true, though.” Mathieu pulls him closer and plants a kiss against his temple.  “I must have been good in a previous life.”

“You’re good now, aren’t you?”

“Maybe I was a nun or something.”

Viktor rolls his eyes, straddles him, and shuts him up with a kiss.

Later, when he’s drifting off with his head pillowed on Mathieu’s chest, he pretends not to hear: “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

 

* * *

 

Still, there’s something to be said about stress that comes less like a single explosion, and more like a steady trickle of water that, given enough time, can break rocks. It creeps up on him bit by bit: school makes up the most of it, with all of his teachers who seem to think they’re the only ones whose classes matter, and assign projects and homework with that same mindset. Every month there’s a project that’s a performance of some sort, and he has his own to worry about -- but oh, Berenice in the vocal stream needs an accompanist for her song, and Vincent is recruiting for a one-time gig at his sister’s wedding, so would he be free? And of course he says yes, sure, because he’s new at this whole thing and suddenly he has _peers_ and maybe even _friends_ , and he’s more desperate to keep them than he should be. So he ends up having to master three pieces instead of one, and he has to carve out the time for that when Mathieu is at work, because he needs to spend quality time with his boyfriend, of course. He burns an entire weekend consoling Georgi after a messy breakup with Clarinet Girl, and the very next day he has to take Makkachin to the vet. Sometimes he stays up all night practicing on campus, and goes back home to shower just to try to trick himself into thinking it’s a ‘new day’, instead of hour 72 of a very long one. It never works.

So he tries to cope, somehow. He finds that he can’t match Mathieu’s caffeine consumption without doing weird things to his heart rate, and he’s too scared to try the pills that some of the second-years in his program swear by. So when he first takes a bottle of vodka home and mixes some with soda at the end of the night, it’s really just to help him wind down after a terrible day. It helps a little, and it tides him over until the next terrible day. That’s something.

 

 

 

_xxv:_

A long time ago -- probably only a few years back, but God it feels like it’s been an eternity -- his physics tutor was one of the key players in the Soviet Union’s Salyut program, or so Papa said. This was a big, _big_ deal of course, but all Viktor really remembers is an ancient man who spoke the bare minimum, and always ended up with chalk dust on his sleeves. One day, he was talking about thermodynamics, and how, in a reversible process, you can get away with not having entropy increase if the change in a system is infinitesimal. It’s all in theory, of course: because it would take an infinite amount of time for such a process to finish, perfectly reversible processes are impossible. However, if the change happens slowly enough, the deviation from reversibility may be negligible; you can ‘pretend’ the system remains at equilibrium.

Until it isn’t, of course. He’s a frog in a pot of slowly boiling water, and he’s suffering death by a thousand cuts. He doesn’t notice something is wrong because the change happens slowly, and even then, it still feels like equilibrium -- have things always been this way? He can’t remember.

“What do you mean you can’t go out this weekend? It’s the fucking weekend!”

It’s a Thursday. Viktor doesn’t have classes on Friday mornings, so he usually cooks for them at Mathieu’s place, and stays over on Thursday nights. He doesn’t want to impose on Georgi, so Makkachin stays at their upstairs neighbor’s place, and he returns the favor for her adorable corgi on Mondays. “I have exams next week. I have to study.”

“Do you have any idea how hard it was to get those tickets? The favors I had to pull?”

“I’m sorry. You could have asked me first.”

Silence. Viktor goes back to cooking, thinking about how, if he plans this well enough, he might be able to squeeze in a thirty-minute study break while waiting for the roast in the oven. He doesn’t think much about the argument at hand, because in the back of his mind he knows it’s the same minor fight they’ve been having for some time now. Mathieu’s busy, _he’s_ busy, they’re both stressed and their schedules don’t always overlap, which causes even more stress. It’s all trivial, silly stuff. It’ll die down in no time.

There’s a part of him that wants to dwell on how this argument has been happening more and more often as time goes by, but he ignores it, because unstable equilibrium is still equilibrium; it’s comfortable, and he doesn’t know any better.

Viktor jumps, nearly slicing his finger clean off when the bedroom door bangs shut.

He’s standing over a pot he can’t leave when that door opens again. Mathieu’s got his coat and shoes on, and is heading for the front door. “Where are you going?”

The door shuts before he can even finish his sentence.

So Viktor stays, finishes cooking, and eats dinner by himself. He hates this. He hates feeling like shit and waiting for this stupid argument to settle when he has so much else to do. He could be studying. He could be practicing. But he’s waiting instead, because leaving now would break some unwritten rule about being in a relationship, and he doesn’t want to deal with that.

He helps himself to a beer or two while he waits. Turning the overstuffed easy chair in the living room into his own personal sanctuary, he goes over what notes he has on his phone.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been when he hears the key turning in the lock. Mathieu switches all of the lights on one after another, and Viktor winces as the assault of brightness reaches the living room. He fell asleep curled up in an awkward position, and now everything hurts. And his phone’s dead.

He blinks when he catches sight of the bottles on the coffee table. Did he have _that_ much beer?

“I’m sorry.” Arms wrap around him, an apology. The embrace floods him with warmth that washes away all the errant thoughts he’s just now started to entertain. “I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot.”

“It’s fine,” Viktor mumbles. “What time is it?”

“I just… things are so stressful at work right now, and I just -- it’s no excuse, I know. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.” Mathieu sighs. “I’m really sorry. I just thought that we could get away for a bit, you know? I shouldn’t have blown up.” His head finds the crook of Viktor’s neck. “Will you forgive this idiot?” is mumbled into his collar.

Was there ever any other choice? This, too, is the outcome of every time they’ve had this argument -- it’s almost like he’s in the Twilight Zone. Still, Viktor relaxes into his arms and kisses the top of his head. “We can do something next weekend.”

Maybe that’s just what love is, sometimes.

 

* * *

 

The conservatory lets them reserve practice rooms pretty much 24/7, and he and Georgi occasionally find themselves burning the midnight oil, especially when big performances come up for either of them. Hours-long practice sessions aren’t very sustainable to the sleep-deprived, so when they feel themselves hitting a wall, they head outside for some fresh air to hopefully reset their minds.

“I just want to marry a nice girl and make a decent living with my trumpet, that’s all.” When the wind direction changes, Georgi gets up and walks over to the other side so that when he blows smoke out, Viktor doesn’t get it all in his face. He’s so considerate like that. “I don’t think I could really want for anything more.”

Viktor nods. The pre-mixed bottled ‘cocktails’ from the convenience store near campus aren’t his first choice, but everything else that’s within walking distance closed two hours ago. At least this way, he supposes, he’s making his sweet tooth happy too. “Kids?”

“If they’re in the cards.” Georgi shrugs. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Dreams.” He fixes Viktor with a curious eye. “Or, don’t tell me you’ve already accomplished everything you wanted in this life?”

“I never _wanted_ anything in this life to begin with,” is what the shitty ‘daiquiri’ makes him say. He pauses to reconsider. “Okay, that’s not true.”

“Nor is it possible.”

“I guess.” He has to think about that. “I don’t know, really? Right now I just want to pass this program, I think. After that, I don’t know.”

“Well, what about… ah, what’s his name? Your boyfriend right now. Do you think he’s ‘the one’?”

Viktor chugs back the rest of his drink.

 

* * *

 

It’s like he closes his eyes for a moment, and then when he opens, them it’s winter again, and all of that time has flown by.

Viktor forces himself to focus. Mathieu is talking about his trading exploits -- he hears something in there about ‘put options’, and about how ‘commodities move in a cycle, if we just weather this storm…’ …something. He doesn’t catch the end of it, because he’s only half-listening. He doesn’t quite know how to remedy that.

“You haven’t processed a single word I’ve said, have you?”

Damn it. Viktor smiles at him sheepishly, and shakes his head. “Sorry. I’m just tired, I think. The school’s holding a concert for the winter festival and it’s just been non-stop.” He brightens. “But it’s okay! Just a couple more months of this, and I’ll have my degree and it’ll all be over.” Well, not really, he has to _pass_ all his classes and finals first, but he’s in a pretty good state and he knows he’s got this. It’s exciting, if he can look past the exhaustion and the stress: to be so close to his goal, two long years in the making. Something to be proud of.

“Hmmm.” Mathieu’s leaned back in his chair, and is regarding him through a hooded gaze that Viktor can’t make sense of right now. “And then what?” he presses.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what do you plan to do? After graduating from the conservatory.”

“I don’t know… work, probably?” Where are they going with this conversation?

“Are you thinking of performing again?” Mathieu leans forward, a strange scowl etched onto his face. “People _know_ you. You are aware of this, right?”

“I know, but it’s been years. At some point, people have got to forget.” Right? “And if they don’t, so what? I’ll use a stage name.” He shrugs. It’s not like he isn’t already technically using one now, and he’s performed in more than a few concerts both on and off campus, as part of the requirements for his degree. He hasn’t run into any trouble so far; besides Georgi and Mathieu, he doubts that anyone else really knows or cares about his past, and the career-that-could-have-been which he left behind. “It really doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

(That night, when he’s caught in the throes of pleasure, bathed in heat and moonlight, he dimly registers that their hands are intertwined, above his head. He notices because Mathieu is gripping his caged fingers so hard that they start to hurt. He tries to say something, but his protest is swallowed by a kiss that doesn’t end.

In the morning, Mathieu asks Viktor to move in with him.)

 

* * *

 

The final requirement for his degree is a performance, as per tradition, to be given in front of the entirety of the conservatory’s faculty, and the rest of the graduating class. There aren’t really any guidelines or even hints for what the faculty’s looking for, just that it should be jazz and that it should ‘demonstrate what the students have learned over the past two years in the program’.

So, barely any rules, he thinks. It’s appropriate, in a way.

They’re given the option to work either solo or in groups, and it only makes sense to pair up with Georgi -- after all, they’ve seen this through together so far, they may as well take it to the very end. Georgi wants to ‘hire’ a drummer from the first-year class and do a Chet Baker medley as a trio.

“We start with ‘ _But Not For Me_ ’, and do a key change at the end before ‘ _My Heart Stood Still’_ ,” he explains. “We come back to E flat major for ‘[ _I Fall In Love Too Easily_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zrSoHgAAWo)’. I’ll do a short solo that segues into ‘[ _I Get Along Without You Very Well_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgbPHTBiAVQ).’ Then you do your solo, and finally we finish it off with ‘[ _Born to Be Blue_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y11EHQAGhU)’. What do you think?”

Viktor doesn’t have to look up any of these songs; Georgi is a huge Chet Baker fan, and when they lived together their room saw many nights of _It Could Happen to You_ and _Chet Baker Sings_ playing well into the morning. Apparently, the catalyst for this admiration was a quote the man made about love, and how ‘ _life [isn’t] really worth all the pain and effort and struggling if you don’t have somebody that you love very much_ ’. A 15- or 16-year-old Georgi saw those words in print, exclaimed ‘Yes! Yes!’ aloud in his room, and that was that.

Which is fine, because Viktor doesn’t mind. He’s played all of these songs at least once before, but it shouldn’t be too hard to spin something new to bring to the table. And he knows that Georgi shines at his absolute brightest when he’s singing about love. That having been said… “It’s kind of a depressing sequence, isn’t it?”

“It’s perfect,” Georgi insists. “It fully captures the essence of when a man at first doesn’t believe in love. And then he falls in love, but something happens and before long he is falling _out_ of love. Then he repeats the cycle again.”

“Depressing,” Viktor repeats.

It’s still not necessarily an objection, though, so Georgi considers the matter settled and Viktor agrees with him. “Let’s see, _‘But Not For Me’._..” Georgi hums to himself, tapping his finger against bell of his trumpet. “We’re not going to have a bass player. Can you do a walking bass?”

“Sure.” He’s done it before, albeit not for this song. He’ll manage.

Georgi starts off with a short, upbeat intro on his trumpet. Viktor answers him with chords on the piano when he rests. He doesn’t actually start the walking bass until Georgi starts singing: _“They’re writing songs of love, but not for me…”_

E7 to A, to D, to Dm7, back to A. His left hand ‘walks’ along the lower keys from one root note to another, through a mix of steps and arpeggios, and a few chromatic notes he throws in here and there. He feels his phone buzzing in his pocket, but he decides to wait until one of them messes up to check what it is.

It eventually comes when one of Georgi’s high notes comes out scratchy -- he blames the cheese he had this morning. Viktor calls for a quick break and pulls out his phone, which has buzzed a couple more times since.

 

 

> **Mathieu**
> 
> Where are you?
> 
> Where are you?
> 
> Where are you?

 

 

Viktor sighs. He feels guilty, but he doesn’t really have the time for this.

 

 

> **Mathieu**
> 
> School. Heading home soon.
> 
> Still??
> 
> Show me
> 
> ??
> 
> Show me you’re still on campus.
> 
> Take a picture and send it to me.

 

 

Okay…? Too tired to argue, he snaps a selfie with the huge chalkboard at the edge of the practice room as his backdrop.

He doesn’t get a reply after that, which at least gives them a smooth, uninterrupted practice. Of course, he’ll have to deal with placating an obviously upset boyfriend later, but you just have to take what small victories you get sometimes.

 

* * *

 

Georgi’s girlfriend dumps him on the Saturday before finals week, which in any other universe might have ended any hopes of him, and by extension Viktor, getting a halfway decent grade for their final performance together. But here's the secret, awful as it might sound: Georgi’s a great musician and singer on his own, but when you add heartbreak to the mix, he becomes transcendent.

“You’re a hero. _Hero_. That solo was a gift from the gods,” he says for about the fifth time that night. At this point the bouncer waves them into the club, and Viktor has to grab Georgi by his jacket sleeve to stop him from walking forlornly into glass. “Come on, no sad thoughts tonight, we got an A+! And I have it on good authority that we’re the only ones in our year who did.”

“I’m sorry, I just…” Georgi heaves a sad, never-ending sigh. “I miss her.”

“It’s her loss.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever have a girl like her again.”

“You’ll meet new girls! Girls that won’t dump their boys over Facetime.”

Georgi groans, and buries his face in his hands. “She was my forever!”

“No, she wasn’t.” Still tugging on his sleeve, Viktor steers them slowly through the crowd, a tight and winding route that leads to the bar. “Come on. What are you drinking tonight?”

Georgi ends up ordering something with whiskey and amaretto that comes out in an old-fashioned glass. Viktor walks around with his own vodka tonic in hand, following him around to make sure he doesn’t do something stupid like call his ex. Or talk about her to the girl who approaches him later in the evening -- Viktor isn’t sure how much time has passed, just that it’s ‘three drinks later’.

In the spell cast by the dim, smoky light, it’s easy to get lost in dreamy whole-tone scales and believe that everything will be alright. He has everything he needs: he has Makkachin, he has a partner, he has friends he can actually talk to about things other than music, and in about two weeks he’ll have a piece of paper with the conservatory’s seal on it that will open doors to… to what? Who knows? The future is a blank canvas bursting with the promise of surprise, and he can’t wait to see it.

Maybe it’s the buzz from the alcohol, or maybe it’s the lingering high from that spectacular show they put on earlier today. But he’s content; he’s _happy_.

He’s --

 

 

> **Mathieu**
> 
> Where are you?

 

 

Viktor already knows what the message says when he feels the vibration in his pocket. Of course, he has to read it to answer anyway, but at this point it’s more of a formality.

 

 

> **Mathieu**
> 
> Still at the club, but I’ll be home soon!
> 
> Or do you want to come out to meet us?
> 
> WE GOT AN A+
> 
> That’s not an answer.
> 
> Where are you?

 

 

Viktor stares at the message for a full minute before deciding -- screw it. If they’re going to have this fight again anyway, he’s not going to ruin tonight with it. He skips the chaser this round and orders a double vodka on the rocks out of spite.

It’s encouraging to see Georgi actually laughing again. When Viktor finds him, he’s parked himself at a corner table, where a group of three pretty girls hangs onto every word he says. Viktor isn’t sure what the story’s about until he’s within earshot again, but from the way Georgi’s flailing his arms, he figures he’s probably doing an impersonation of their Jazz History professor.

There’s only so long he can go with ignoring the incessant buzzing in his pocket. At the end of the hour, when the girls all flock to the bathroom, Georgi gives him a worried look. “Is everything alright?” he asks.

Viktor considers it, but eventually decides it’s too much effort to play dumb. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m just tired, I think.” He drains the rest of his glass as he stands up, and claps Georgi on the shoulder. “You have fun, okay?”

He waves off Georgi’s protests and goes to clear his tab. He figures he should be a little more sober than he is, knowing what’s coming, but it’s too late to change that now. He wonders if he can still take Makkachin out for a walk despite how late it is. Maybe he can stall that way.

The line is still a mile long when he comes out of the club. He’s greeted by chatter and the drone of the street, a gust of suddenly-freezing wind… and a stranger recording on his phone suddenly far too close for comfort.

“Hello! Excuse me? Viktor Nikiforov? You are Viktor Nikiforov, right?”

A flash of blinding white light stuns him. Viktor winces, and puts his arm up. “W-What?”

“Viktor Nikiforov! Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

“How long have you been in Paris?”

“Are you in contact with your family?”

“Are you planning a comeback any time soon?”

There’s more -- there’s a whole fucking group of them. What the hell is going on? But the urge to flee is a lot stronger, on a near-primal level, and overpowers all of his confusion. “Please let me through, I have nothing to say. Please, I’m in a hurry.”

Another flash. He can hear his heart in his ears. Someone grabs his arm and pulls. “Viktor Nikiforov! Can you please comment on -- ”

“Get away from me!” He shoves the man back as hard as he can and makes a run for it through the crowd, ignoring the shouts and the curses as he pushes his way through.

It’s not until later, when he’s already in the metro and his heartbeat’s slowed down to something respectable, that he realizes: those people’s questions, and his own replies, had been in Russian.

 

* * *

 

“ _You_ tipped them off? Really??”

There isn’t even an attempt to deny it. “What about it, then?”

“Why?! I trusted you!”

The dining table is littered with empty beer bottles and cigarette butts. Mathieu looks like hell. When Makkachin comes into the room, she’s whining and Viktor isn’t sure she’s been fed yet. She pounces on the food he sets out for her, which only makes him angrier.

In the end, he does wind up taking her out for that walk, just around the block. But it’s neither long enough nor cold enough to clear his head, or to stop him from seeing red.

Mathieu stands up when they walk back into the apartment, as though shaken out of a trance. There’s at least one new beer bottle on the table. “We need to talk,” he says.

“No. I can’t do this right now.”

“Look, if you wouldn’t have lied to me, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

“ _What_?” He whirls around from where he’s hanging up Makkachin’s leash on the wall. She barks. “When did I lie? I never even told you where I was. You were spying on me!”

“Because I was worried about you! I’m always worried about you! I’m sorry for fucking caring about my boyfriend -- ”

“Stop,” he cries. “You always say that. That’s not fair!”

“Isn’t it?!” Mathieu takes a step closer, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “And here I thought I was doing a good thing! You’ve always -- you’ve always been terrified of people finding out who you are, as if -- what, they’ll drag you back to Russia? Well, none of that matters now, because everyone knows!”

It’s hard to describe, in words, what it feels like when those last few words register in his mind, and he finally realizes what tonight was about. All of their fights, short and trivial but growing more and more frequent by the day, about where he is and what time he’ll come home and who he’s with and why he has to go… why he can’t just _stay, here, forever_ … suddenly, they don’t seem so random anymore.  

How long has it been -- how long have they been out of equilibrium? How long has he been boiling, bleeding from these thousand and one cuts? “You’re crazy,” he finally breathes.

“I’m not. Paris can be your refuge. _I_ can be your refuge. We’ll never have to leave.”  

“You can’t possibly think…” He trails off, trembling. Everything suddenly feels so cold. Makkachin is barking and it’s loud, it’s louder -- when did she get between them? The barks interrupt his every train of thought, which is terrible because with every passing second that he hasn’t been saying anything, the look on Mathieu’s face has been slipping more and more into anger. “I’m sorry, it’s late, can we do this tomorrow? I really can’t -- ”

“Shut the hell up!!”

They say moments like this are supposed to happen in slow motion -- that’s how they end up staying with you, long after the fact. But it doesn’t, and it actually happens so fast: he sees Mathieu lunging forward with his fist raised, and that face he’s kissed countless times contorted in fury; he sees Makkachin rear back, and he hears her yelp. And then he’s between them, with Mathieu on the floor. And it’s over before it even happens, because it’s only the pain in Viktor’s hand that tells him he already threw the punch.

A beat passes. His hand throbs.

Viktor doesn’t wait for him to say anything. He grabs his wallet, his phone, and his jacket, whistles for Makkachin to follow him, and runs away without looking back.

 

* * *

 

The next few lines of his aria come to him 30,000 feet in the air, in a burst of emotion after too much champagne on an empty stomach.

_Con una spada vorrei tagliare quelle gole che cantano d'amore…_

A flash of pain in his hand, a pointed reminder, stops him as he fills in an eighth note. He grits his teeth. It doesn’t look like he’s broken anything, but as far as comfort goes it’s a pittance.

_Vorrei serrare nel gelo le mani che scrivono quei versi d'ardente passione…_

The moment he takes his phone off airplane mode, the messages start coming in. Mostly from Yakov, Georgi, and a few numbers he doesn’t recognize. It would have been more, he thinks, if he hadn’t blocked a certain number. Georgi just wants to know if he’s alright. Yakov trusts that he is, but warns him not to read the news.

When has he ever listened to Yakov? Maybe now would have been a good time to start, but it’s too late: _reclusive Russian pianist caught in an altercation outside Paris nightclub_. Noises being made about a possible assault, but the victim -- name withheld for his protection, of course -- says he won’t press charges, so long as Viktor comes home.

 _Now_ Papa disowns him.

 

 

 

_xxvi:_

He makes a new rule for himself, a simple one: he’ll stay in any particular city under a false name -- usually ‘Victor’, with a ‘c’, and whatever last name he comes up with the first time someone asks -- until he’s recognized. At that point, he’ll take Makkachin, his keyboard, and a bare minimum of belongings, drop everything else, and move to a new city to start the process all over again.

With these conditions, he barely lasts four months in London.

Montreal is more forgiving. It’s colder, and for the first few weeks he has to strain to adapt to the French spoken here, with its shortened prepositions and uniquely sacrilegious profanity. A warm, rainy April day after a late winter storm leaves puddles of melting snow around the area where he finds a flat to rent by the month; Makkachin jumps into all of them during their walk, and she looks so happy that he can’t even be mad.

For a while, things are good: one-time kijiji gigs, plus some of the money still coming in from the Van Cliburn recordings, are enough to keep him comfortable and Makkachin spoiled. Things are good until, at one of those gigs, someone calls him out by name, and he learns that crossing the Atlantic wasn’t enough.

He finds a sleepy town next to the St. Lawrence River, population 5000-and-change, plus one Russian and his poodle. The room he rents by the week at a colonial-style resort is small and dated, but the resort itself is huge, offering an expanse of green he never quite found in the big cities he’s favored until now. Makkachin claims the entirety of the resort grounds as her new backyard; she’s the happiest dog in the world. It’s easy to disappear here: he stops dying his hair, though he keeps it short, and ditches the fake glasses. He goes for jogs in the morning in the next town over, and comes back at nights for the occasional cash gig at one of the restaurants or bars.

Days blur into one another. The bar owners are very generous at the end of the day, see, and he usually drinks alone in his room until sunrise. If anyone has anything to say about the bottles he leaves out, they don’t say it to his face.

When warmer temperatures come, so do the Islanders: summer residents and tourists drawn by boat cruises and theater festivals. The clientele are mostly older folk, some of them driving up, some of them arriving by the tour bus from retirement homes. All of them ask him at least twice what he’s doing in this town, and he never has a real answer.

Every night when the Islanders are in town, the basement of the resort’s gift shop turns into a party where everyone’s invited. There’s a jukebox down there, which is the usual source of entertainment. Someone must have heard _something_ , because suddenly, on a random Tuesday as he’s driving his rented car back from the bar, one of the resort’s workers drags him excitedly to the old upright Baldwin next to the jukebox, and asks if it’s true that he plays jazz?

They all love him after that. ‘Victor with the poodle’, the jazz man, the piano man. He’s usually background music to them while they talk and play card games, so he cycles through jazz standards without much thought. But one sweltering night near the end of July, he’s about ready to wrap up his set when a sweet old couple amble over, and the man slips a crisp red bill into the styrofoam cup he’s been using for tips.

“Do you know how to play the, ah, [ that Johnny Mathis song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JwhJMFDybQ)?” He hums a few bars, grinning widely. “It’s our song, that one. First song played at our wedding. We’re celebrating our anniversary today.”

“Wow, congratulations!”

“Yup. 38 years and counting!” His wife beams.

They do a slow dance as he [ plays](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-UjwvJ0eeA). He can see them in the corner of his eye, the way they’ve got their arms wrapped around one another and how they lift their feet as though they’re one. He can’t help but steal a glance when some of the other patrons cheer them on, and while it’s the most adorable sight in the world, there’s something in the way they look at each other that makes his heart clench.

Because there’s an important corollary to his one rule: _never get attached_. Whether he even wants to or not doesn’t even matter, because he just can’t afford to put down roots anymore. Not when someone records the dance and shares it with his family on Facebook, and the very next day, that same someone’s cousin’s stepdaughter comments on the grainy video with a link to the Paris nightclub story in an online rag, asking _‘is this the same guy??? :O’_

It’s too bad. Makkachin really liked it here.

 

* * *

 

He thinks of that couple while nursing a bitter cup of gas station coffee with vodka at a rest stop, scribbling onto a paper napkin that he’ll have to copy from later. He thinks of what they have and how wonderful it is. He knows he can’t have that; the price is too high.

 _Questa storia che senso non ha_ _  
_ _Svanirà questa notte assieme alle stelle_

That still doesn’t stop him from wanting it, though.

_Se potessi vederti dalla speranza nascerà l’eternità_

 

* * *

 

Viktor chooses a big city this time, hoping that hiding in plain sight will work better with a population of 2.79 million instead of 5000. Just outside the Financial District, near the city hall, there’s a jazz and blues hotel that, well, delivers on all that its name promises. Their cheapest, tiniest room is right above the bar, and they charge him extra for keeping a large pet, but it’s fine. Falling asleep to improv jazz and vodka makes for some very vivid, surreal dreams.

They take him on as a resident keyboardist, which means they use him to plug any gaps whenever a group comes to perform and they need someone on the keys, or when bookings fall through and they’d otherwise risk a dead night. He doesn’t mind, because the tips are _insane_.

After some time, a few people quit and the hotel’s management starts to put him everywhere: front of house, helping in the kitchen, tending bar. He learns the basics of slinging drinks over the course of a few weekdays shadowing the actual bartender, and other tutorials online while eating boxed poutine for breakfast.

This is how the night before Halloween, a ‘big band’ night, finds him sticking a celery stalk into maybe the twentieth Caesar he’s made that night. It’s been an unremarkable shift so far: the group playing on stage right now is great, but he’s been too busy to really appreciate them. A tall man in a tweed coat, with two-tone hair and eyelashes to die for, slides into a bar stool in front of him.

“Evening. What can I get you?”

“I’ll…” The man trails off when their eyes meet, and lets out a rich chuckle. “Sorry. Wow. Let’s see… what do you recommend?”

“Our specials are by the door. I hear the Gold Rush is good. It’s Bourbon, honey syrup, and lemon juice.”

He doesn’t understand the bitter laugh he gets in response. “Nothing ‘gold’ for me tonight, I’m afraid. What do you usually drink at the end of the day?”

Viktor fixes him a vodka tonic. He asks if he’d like to open up a tab, but the man says he’s not staying very long. He pays with a European credit card and apologizes, because he spent all his cash on a cab ride and tonight is apparently not a night of smart decisions.

Also: his name is Christophe Giacometti, hi, please call him Chris. Viktor pulls up a random street name from a two-block radius from the hotel, and decides that tonight, he’s Victor Simcoe.

“What’s the name of that song they’re playing?”

Viktor doesn’t even have to listen for more than two seconds. “[ _In the Mood_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CI-0E_jses) _._ ”

“Sounds sexy.” Chris runs the pad of his thumb over the rim of his glass with a grin that gives the gesture a whole other layer of meaning. “What I wouldn’t give to see you ‘in the mood’.”

He murmured that last part half to himself, and in French. Viktor takes the bait anyway. “At least buy me a drink first.”

Chris gets a deer-in-the-headlights look -- for all of two seconds, before he bursts out laughing.

So he does end up opening that tab, and he stays for the rest of Viktor’s shift, chatting him up during lulls in the night. Viktor finds out that he’s a figure skater, and that he actually just competed in something called ‘Skate Canada’. When Viktor teasingly asks if he’s any good, Chris glances furtively around the bar, and then retrieves a silver medal from inside his coat.

“Amazing!”

“ _Merci_.” Chris shoves it back into his pocket. “Local boy won gold, but he deserved it. He had some really big, risky jumps.” He lets out a low whistle. “But it’s alright. I’m a slow starter, see. And I’m good at coming from behind.”

It’s Viktor who can’t control his laughter this time.

By the time his shift ends, most of downtown has either closed up shop as well, or hasn’t opened yet. 4 a.m. is a weird time to be out in the city, but they find a 24-hour Tim Horton’s that’s close to Union Station, which is where Chris eventually needs to go, and offers free wi-fi. Chris was supposed to show him some skating videos on his phone, so that he could learn the differences between the jumps and watch out for Chris’ lutz in Sochi. What ends up happening is that they order an irresponsible number of Timbits, and sit at a table to chat by the window.

“It all catches up with you in the end. No way to avoid it.” Chris picks off all the honey dip Timbits, which is great because Viktor likes the sour cream-glazed ones. “Twenty-odd years of jumping and skating and jumping and skating. It takes its toll. I can feel it in my knees, in my hips. I’m getting old.”

“You don’t look old.”

“‘Old’ is a relative thing. As far as this sport goes, I’m nearing retirement age.” Chris sighs. “It’s why I’m here, to be honest. My coach and I had a… disagreement about my program this season. He wants me to put a quad lutz in a combo for the first time, and I… don’t have the heart to tell him that I think it’s too late to try.”

“I see.” Viktor stares at his coffee, and thinks about his own ‘coach’, and how long ago he chose not to have any of the conversations that could have, maybe, helped to avoid the fallout. Things are better now, and none of that matters anymore, but he wonders. Would it have made a difference?

“It’s a hell of a high, though. It’s all I’ve ever known, and I have no idea what to do when the time comes to hang up my skates for good.” He nods once at Viktor. “What about you? What’s your vice?”

The word slips from his lips in a breath before he can even think about it. “Piano.”

Chris nods approvingly, and raises his coffee cup in a mock-toast. “Good choice. May you play forever until you get tired of it -- or until you get arthritis in fifty years, whichever comes first.”

They laugh, talk about their pets, and order a second round of Timbits. Viktor feels the sugar rush as he walks Chris to the train station, and they watch the sky lightening with the sunrise from behind the glass of the Skywalk.

“This will take me to the airport?”

“Yup. There’s another train at the airport itself if you have to switch terminals. What time did you say your flight was?”

“Noon. But I’ll probably have to take my coach out to an expensive airport breakfast to make amends,” Chris sighs.

“Plenty of time either way.”

A cheerful announcement fills the waiting area; the train’s rolling in. The handful of sleepy-eyed travelers slumped in the chairs pick themselves up, and start a queue near where the doors will eventually line up.

“Victor.” He turns with a questioning look, mid-swig of his coffee, but Chris stops the cup with the palm of his hand. “Thank you… for keeping me company last night. I needed that.”

Then he pushes the cup all the way down, until it’s clear of Viktor’s lips, and thanks him again, but without words this time. Viktor tastes vodka, honey, and coffee, hot and rich until Chris pulls away, because the train’s already here -- and Viktor didn’t even hear it come in.

“ _À la prochaine_ ,” Chris whispers against his cheek.

And then the train is gone, and so is he. Viktor stands alone on the platform, his still-warm coffee feeling entirely too cold in his hand. He lets out a little chuckle, and murmurs, “Wow.”

 

* * *

 

When he’s working front of house during the day, he usually has the radio next to him set to a local jazz station. Mondays are slow, and he’s reading an article on his phone about poodles, specifically the haircuts that are best for poodles if they’re not going to be entering any dog shows, but _are_ fond of happily splashing through puddles and mud. He hears the DJ come on, and listens for a few seconds before tuning out again; traffic update, weather, sports news.

He ends up missing the introduction to the next song this way, because when he next pays attention to the radio, the music’s already started. It takes him a while to figure out why exactly he started listening again in the first place: this sounds familiar.

Then the [ trumpet comes in](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4PKzz81m5c), like its brass was forged out of distilled heartache and bitterness, and _is that who he thinks it is?_

It takes forever to load the jazz station’s website on the ancient desktop computer in front of him, and even when it finishes loading he can’t find the ‘Now Playing’ button to save his life. But by that time, the trumpet solo ends, and he hears the artist sing:

 _“Almost blue…_  
_Almost doing things we used to do_ _  
_ There's a girl here and she's almost you…”

Oh God. It’s him. It has to be.

He’s genuinely elated to see, from the inevitable Google-stalking that ensues, that Georgi’s done pretty well for himself. He stayed in Paris after graduation and signed on with an indie label specializing in jazz. He has a girlfriend named Mia who plays guitar -- actually scratch that: he _had_ one, ouch.

And he has a Reddit account, of all things, and it’s ‘georgipopovich_’. Of course. Viktor finds out that he used it for one of those ‘Ask Me Anything’ sessions to promote his album release, and all of his posts are responses to that AMA. The last one is over a year old.

He wonders if Georgi still remembers him. He wonders if it’s worth it to try.

‘Why not’ wins in the end, and before the next hotel guests walk in, he’s already created an account, claiming the handle ‘schnitzelWithPoodles’,  and sent a private message:

_‘Heard you on the radio today. Nicely done! You’re sounding a lot better than you used to, or maybe I’m just remembering the shit acoustics in our dorm room. Congrats! - VN’_

He kind of forgets about it for the rest of his shift, and for the next two days. He figures the account is probably dead, but on the third day he’s proven wrong:

 

 

> **georgipopovich_** **  
> ** expand all    collapse all
> 
> [-] from georgipopovich_  sent 5 hours ago  
>  Viktor?  
>  permalink    source    report    block user    mark unread    reply    full comments
> 
> [-] from georgipopovich_  sent 5 hours ago  
>  If this is really Viktor, tell me the name of the song I used to serenade the saxophone player who lived four doors away from us.  
>  permalink    source    report    block user    mark unread    reply    full comments
> 
> [-] to georgipopovich_  sent 4 minutes ago  
>  Noemie? Trick question, we found out she bats for the other team on the day of, so you ended up drinking all our liquor and crying yourself to sleep in the bathtub.  
>  permalink    source    full comments
> 
> [-] from georgipopovich_  sent 2 minutes ago  
>  CALL ME +1313471XXXX  
>  permalink    source    report    block user    mark unread    reply    full comments

 

He doesn’t recognize the area code, but he dials it anyway. Three rings go by before he hears a click, and he’s had three days to plan this conversation, but the first thing he ends up saying is, “‘A Chet-rospective’? Really?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Georgi feigns offense for half a second, before his warm, self-deprecating laughter fills the line. “You’re alive. That’s good!”

“On occasion.” It comes out before he can help it, so he quickly adds, “Anyway, look at you! Living the dream. How’ve you been?”

Slow and steady, Georgi says, that’s how he’s been tackling life so far. He used to hold part-time jobs on the side, but he quit them now that he can support himself fully with his music. And yes, the _Chet-rospective_ album was supposed to be a cover album but ended up mostly about heartbreak. Still, he met a girl two months ago, her name is Jenny and he’s positive she’s his forever. Viktor decides not to remind him that he’s christened at least five different girls his ‘forever’ in the past.

“And you, are you all settled down… wherever you are?”

“Toronto right now. I’m comfortable.”

“I see.” There’s a pause, like he’s hedging on his next words. “Do you still play?”

Viktor’s laugh comes out bitter. “Of course. It’s not like I have any other marketable skills to offer.”

“But… you still like it, don’t you?”

Of course he does. That was never in question, and he’s come to peace with that now. Whether he knew any better when he started out, whether he was pushed into it too young or kept into it too much is just… it just seems inconsequential, now. Piano is his vice, and all that.

“If you have no love for it anymore, I won’t push -- ”

“No, push me.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m curious.”

“I want to start a jazz quartet.” Georgi says it in a rush, the words tumbling out like he’s afraid he might want to take them back if he doesn’t go all in. “A friend of my agent’s is opening up a jazz bar in the city. Obviously they’d invite different acts here and there, but they’re looking to have some regular performers so they never have a quiet night. I’m thinking weekdays, at the very least. Or more, depending on the season.”

Huh. Interesting. “What have you got so far?”

“Well, I already have a drummer.” He laughs. “I gave a guest performance at one of the universities here -- well, it was half performance, half motivational speech. Anyway, I talked to the head of their Jazz studies program and told him to find me the best that they’ve got. His name is Leo and he’s spectacular. He’s young, so he’s hungry for it. He’s raring to go.”

“Wow.” He remembers when he was young and hungry, and what an incredible time that was. “Anyone else?”

“That’s it for now. So I’m still on the hunt for a bass player. And a pianist.”

He adds weight to those last three words. “And you’re asking me for a… recommendation, is it?” Viktor chuckles.

Georgi doesn’t take the bait. “It’s yours if you want it.”

He looks up and around at the tiny room, which he still hasn’t bothered decorating with anything personalized after all these months. So long as he gives two weeks’ notice, he doesn’t think the hotel will give him a hard time. There’s nothing really tying him down here, just like there’s nothing tying him down anywhere. “I can’t promise anything. I don’t -- I try not to form roots.”

“Then if nothing else, we can just have one last jam session, for old times’ sake. Toronto to Detroit is -- what, four hours’ drive? Five?”

“Probably a bit more with all this snow.” Viktor glances out the window. “And construction.”

“Still. The universe drops us both within an arm’s reach of each other? It must be fate,” Georgi insists. Viktor can picture, so very clearly, the determined set of his jaw, and the steel in his eyes. “What do you say?”

 

 

 

_xxvii:_

He says yes: to a one-way drive through Windsor and across the Detroit River, Makkachin lapping up the winter air through the open passenger’s seat window. Georgi looks about the same as he did in Paris, but he doesn’t smoke as much. He tries not to, anyway. Viktor says yes to an old, empty flat above a pizza place that at least has a proper kitchen, that slowly fills up with craigslist furniture and dog toys. He says yes to a Weber upright from the turn of the century: gorgeous rosewood, though there’s one B key which gives him a bit of grief, but the bar owner promises he’ll have someone come to work on it before the bar opens, so it should be fine.

They start practicing at the bar while it’s undergoing its finishing touches. The smell of paint becomes too much to handle for more than an hour at a time, so they all file out for a ‘fresh air break’ every so often, where Georgi will try to guilt himself out of having a cigarette, and Viktor helps Leo with homework for his Introductory French elective.

He’s the one who finally finds their bass player, in the end. Through one of Leo’s teachers, he gets a gig at a winter wonderland-themed wedding which is bright and magical and, woefully, dry. Wandering the grounds of the estate before the ceremony, he sees a shock of red hair and hears its owner moaning about ‘the same quarter notes _fifty-four goddamn times_ ’ and ‘please put me out of my misery’.

Later, while most of the hired musicians are packing up for the day, he sees that same red-haired woman waiting for… something, a ride probably, in the vestibule of the main house. She’s plucking out a bassline that sounds far more interesting than whatever she had to play at the wedding.

Wait. [ He knows this tune](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx0WezYptns). “ _Fill my heart with song_ ,” he sings out, “ _and let me sing forevermore…_ ”

She glances at him without missing a beat, and breaks into a huge grin. “You’re the piano guy, right?” When he nods, she beckons him over with a jerk of her head. “I’m Mila. My Uber’s late, you want to jam?”

He laughs. “You might notice that I didn’t drag a piano with me into this room.”

“Then keep singing,” comes her cheerful reply.

It’s like the universe conspired to get Georgi his quartet at the very last minute. Not even two weeks after the rest of the band is introduced to Mila, they’re on stage underneath the bright overhead lights, facing a full house for the grand opening of _Butcher’s Keys._

Viktor tests the B key on his piano. The bar owner must have come through, because it sounds perfect. He doesn’t ask the beast to help him tonight. He doesn’t say please. _Let’s put on a show_ , he thinks instead. _Let’s surprise all these people here._

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Georgi announces. “We’re the Sticky Splinters, and we’re honored to make some music for you tonight.”

So it begins, and so it goes. Viktor’s life from that moment on revolves around Makkachin, the band, and vodka tonics that turn into straight vodka the first time he runs out of tonic water. Sometimes he’ll land a solo gig here and there, and sometimes the bar will have special guests, and he takes the week off. Sometimes Leo’s grandmother visits him bringing enough food to sustain a small army, and on those occasions the band won’t have to buy food for three days. Sometimes Georgi gets dumped again, and sometimes Mila comes over with pints of cookie dough ice cream, ranting about her own misadventures in romance and how ‘everything’s so complicated, it’s not worth it’.

Sometimes he agrees. He digs out cookie dough chunks before she can claim them all for herself, and thinks that maybe he’s found his new equilibrium.

 

* * *

 

Until one night, he meets Yuuri Katsuki, and the rest is history.

 

* * *

 

“What? That’s not fair!” Yuuri rolls over and very indignantly pokes him in the side. “You can’t just cut it off there!”

Viktor laughs, and grabs his wrist to stop him. “What does it matter? When you entered my life, you became part of my story. You _know_ the story.”

“But not your side of it.”

“Mmmm, true.” Viktor buries his hand into Yuuri’s hair, pulling him closer until his head is resting on Viktor’s shoulder.

He didn’t tell Yuuri the whole story, of course. How do you even condense 27 years into an evening, into words? There are so many parts that he glossed over, stories he sped through either because Yuuri wouldn’t have the background to appreciate them, or because Viktor’s own memories of them have eroded. He didn’t dwell on past lovers very much at all, and when he did mention them, he left out their names altogether. He doubts that Yuuri needed or wanted to know all of the details.

It’s hard to place a label on how he feels, now that he’s divulged his history, albeit a very abridged version of it. Hopefully it satisfies Yuuri, and hopefully it makes up for having misled him for months.

Tonight, he’s broken the corollary to his one, simple rule. He knows this. A few months ago he could have hidden behind the excuse of ‘finding music’ and, if needed, he could have jumped behind that line in the sand. Hell, he _did_ do that, to some extent. But he kept coming back, and he kept trying to push.  And when he should have let Yuuri walk out of the bar, walk away forever, he pulled him back in and poured his heart out in a song and Yuuri -- Yuuri stayed.

Yuuri stayed. What does he do now?

“I had no idea,” Yuuri mumbles into his shoulder. “The things that I said to you, if I only knew -- I’m so sorry. I wish I could take them all back.”

“But we’re starting over now,” Viktor says to the ceiling, and he wonders if he’s telling mostly Yuuri, or mostly himself. “Water under the bridge, and all that.”

Yuuri stays silent for a few seconds. Viktor keeps stroking his hair, thinking he might have fallen asleep. Then suddenly Yuuri is pushing himself up, shifting; the bed creaks in protest, and come to think of it, Viktor honestly can’t remember the last time it’s had to support two people.

Then he feels Yuuri’s hands on his shoulders, realizes that Yuuri is straddling him, and that train of thought derails very quickly.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting,” Yuuri blurts out. He can just make out the blush on his cheeks thanks to the the moonlight leaking through the window. “This is the first time I…” He chews on his bottom lip. “I’ve never been in a -- in a relationship, or anything like that. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think anyone really does.” Viktor lifts Yuuri’s hand from his shoulder and presses a light, fervent kiss against the dried blood on his knuckles. “We’ll make it up as we go along. Okay?”

Tonight, he’s broken the corollary to his one, simple rule.

But maybe, just maybe: he wasn’t meant to keep running forever.

 

* * *

 

In the end, this is what Viktor leaves unsaid:

_(After Yuuri ran out of his apartment during that first morning-after, Viktor spent a good ten minutes just staring at his door. It took Makkachin licking his face to startle him back to reality, and by that time he wasn’t sure if what he felt was relief -- that he’d actually listened to Georgi, and left Yuuri with a way to contact him -- or terror, because what if he never did, and what if that was the last time Viktor ever saw him again?)_

But also:

_(Ketty told him, between sips of popcorn-flavored bubble tea, not to expect too much. She hadn’t touched the piece or even thought about it since last year. Yuuri had given her such vague descriptions of what he wanted, and it was the first piece she commissioned on her own, and so. Yeah. Viktor listened to it a few times, letting it loop until she finished her drink and he realized that, while it wasn’t bad at all, there was something missing: something of a disconnect between the Yuuri he knew now, and the idea of ‘Yuuri’ in the piano in his ears. He asked if she would be willing to sell him the rights to the piece -- or, otherwise, would she be interested in collaborating to rework the music with him?)_

And:

_(By the time Yuri came to him about payment for his free skate music, everything was already falling apart, and a part of Viktor was already trying to decide if he would one day make the drive to Chicago, or gun it South all the way to New Orleans. He waved it off; hell, he barely remembered playing the piece at all. Still, Yuri was insistent, and so after refusing his money for the fifth time, Viktor finally threw him a bone: “Do you know how to do a quad salchow?” Of course, old man, said narrowed eyes and a displeased curl of his lip, like Viktor had somehow insulted him. No matter. “Could you teach it to someone? If they were struggling with it? Say the word, and that’s my price.”)_

Because just as Yuuri cannot remember, Viktor cannot forget:

Before he knew Yuuri Katsuki as Yuuri Katsuki, he knew him as just another patron at the bar who’d simply had too much to drink. Sure, he still remembered him from the ‘talented fingers’ comment a few nights ago, but they’d exchanged so few words that Viktor didn’t think it really counted. He asked for a name this time, if only out of politeness at first. But all he got was a giggle muffled into a hand, and something about ‘pork cutlet bowls’. He didn’t press on.

“How can I help you tonight?”

“Mmmm. Play me something, Piano Man.” Yuuri had walked with purpose up the stage, and proceeded to deposit himself right onto the piano bench, pressing himself up against Viktor. “With your. Fingers. Talented… fingers.”

Mila was openly laughing at him. Leo grinned at his drums like he was trying to split his own face in two, and he could even hear the the mirth as Georgi sang about _‘a weepy old willow…  he really knows how to cry.’_

The patrons were starting to murmur amongst themselves. Oh God, he hoped the owner wasn't in tonight.  

“Ah, can you play like this?” Yuuri blinked at him from behind the slightly-smudged lenses of his glasses, slurring, “'M not getting in your way, am I?”

He was, a little bit. But he was also warm, and highly amusing to the rest of the band. Viktor found that this wasn’t really bothering him enough to make a fuss about it. Then again, that could change anytime. “Don't worry about it. Comfortable?”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

Viktor ended up playing that way right up until closing time. There was one intermission that came and went, but he couldn’t get up from the bench because Yuuri had fallen asleep at some point, and was using his shoulder as a pillow. Viktor worried that if he moved even an inch, Yuuri would topple over. Every so often, the bartender would flash him a thumbs-up from behind her counter.

“You can always… I dunno… push him off?” Leo tried to help.

“I think I could lift him,” Mila said. “You want me to try?”

That would have been convenient, sure. But Yuuri was clinging to his arm like a barnacle, a small smile on his lips as he snoozed, occasionally murmuring something in Japanese. Viktor didn’t have the heart to do it.

Until closing time rolled around, and he no longer had a choice. “Hey. Hey.” Viktor nudged at the dead weight resting on his shoulder and side. “Wake up, sleeping beauty. We're closing.”

It took a couple more tries. Yuuri sluggishly sat up straight, let out a mighty yawn, and smiled. “Hi, Piano Man.”

“Not as of two minutes ago,” he chuckled, looking up at the clock. “It’s just ‘Viktor’ now.”

“Viktor. V-Viktorrr.”

“Yes, that’s very nice. And your name is…?”

“Viktooorrrrr!” He felt pretty sure that wasn’t it. “My, my family owns a hot spring! Back home. When the s-season… season’s over. You should come visit.”

The bar was practically empty now; the stragglers left behind were just waiting for them to leave, so they could clean and close up. None of the staff knew who this adorably drunk man was, though the bartender did mention that it looked like he came in alone.

Viktor turned to the band for help. He didn’t know what he was expecting, they were all less than helpful.

“I've gotta say, of all the drunken admirers of yours that I've seen…” Leo hedged, clearly weighing his words. “He’s the most…”

“Sticky!” Mila provided happily.

“What am I supposed to do? Do I call him a cab?”

“Can you even get one from here?” Georgi mused. “At this time?”

Useless. Mila cracked another joke about fingers, and Leo snickered as he rewarded her with a rimshot.

This is how Viktor found himself walking home with a still-very-drunk Yuuri in tow, because he lived the closest to the bar, and because whenever they asked Yuuri where he lived, all he would do was chirp _‘onsen!’_ Yes, Mila got a dozen more jokes out of that, and Georgi furrowed his brows like he was about to compose a speech about responsibility and consent, but Viktor just gave him a pointed look, and he thankfully dropped it. He could handle this, he told them.

Ten minutes later, they were alone in the middle of the road, and Yuuri had decided to perform an impromptu pole dance using a street lamp. Viktor was starting to wonder if he really could, indeed, handle this.

“While that is very, very impressive,” he called out, “I have to ask you to come down from there.” When that didn’t look like it had a prayer of working, he added, “Please? I don’t want you hurting yourself.”

“I’m not.” Yuuri spun around the pole a few more times, gracing Viktor with some unwelcome secondhand dizziness on his part. He suddenly stopped with his face only a few inches from Viktor’s own, and Viktor could swear he was only holding onto that light post by his fingertips. “Gonna hurt myself. Have a little faith.”

“I’m a bit low on faith, to be honest.”

Not his first choice of words to answer that, by a long shot, but he wasn’t really thinking clearly. He was cold, and he was exhausted. He had a few drinks in him courtesy of a handful of patrons at the bar, and that last vodka tonic he had was probably a double, because it hit a bit harder than he was expecting.

He just wanted this day to end. But that wasn’t Yuuri’s fault. Forcing a smile, he added in a gentler tone, “Sorry. It’s not you, I promise, just…” He dropped the sentence and took Yuuri’s free hand in his own instead. “Come on. Walk with me?”

Yuuri frowned at him. He didn’t give in even as Viktor started tugging. “Only if you sing for me.”

Viktor let out a choked little laugh. “I already sang for you at the bar.”

“But was it for me? Was it really?” Yuuri squinted at him like he was trying to peer into his soul. Then, he tugged Viktor impossibly close by the front of his shirt, and mouthed against his ear. “I want… I want you to sing for me when there’s nobody else. Will you do that, Viktor? Sing only for me?”

It was cold when they left the bar, he remembers. It was cold because winter hadn’t really left yet, and because he’d switched from his coat to a spring jacket a few weeks too early. But right now… he didn’t feel cold at all. “Sure.”

“Yay!!” Yuuri threw his arms around his neck, practically jumping him. Viktor stumbled back, but apparently Yuuri knew what he was doing, because in the blink of an eye Yuuri got his feet planted on the ground. At that same moment, he spun them around until he got Viktor in a dip, one hand supporting the small of his back, the other entwined with Viktor’s own.

Viktor wasn’t sure when _his_ other hand had found the nape of Yuuri’s neck, but here they were.

“Uh,” he started helpfully.

“Is it easy for you?” Yuuri’s eyes glistened by the light of the street lamp. He looked at Viktor’s face like he was searching desperately for something, but Viktor had no idea what that might have been. “To make promises, just like that?”

And he had no idea why those words cut him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

But Yuuri was already pulling him up, and letting go of his hand. He skipped forward a few steps ahead, and Viktor thought he heard something about how ‘ _Vice rhymes with ‘ice’, did you know that?_ ’ He sighed.

He couldn’t stop watching him, though. Even though he kept straying from the sidewalk, and he couldn’t walk in a straight line to save his life, Yuuri was still so graceful when he moved. There was refinement in the way he swayed, poetry with each stretch of his limbs.

Viktor couldn’t help but ask. “Say, are you a dancer?”

“Mmmm… yes and no. I’m a figure skater!”

“Wow.”

“But I started out in ballet. I still do it actually, but it’s more to keep my presentation scores up there. You know?”

“Wow,” he said again. Ballet made him think of Lilia, and of young Yuri with his tiny hands. It almost made his mind stray to Mama, but he was neither sober enough nor quite drunk enough to entertain thoughts of her tonight. Perhaps some other time. “Ballet on blades,” he chuckled. “Must be something.”

“It’s really not,” Yuuri blurted out. “Or, well, _I’m_ really not. I...”

Yuuri stopped walking, his head bowed low. Viktor stopped a few paces ahead of him and regarded him with concern. Was it something he’d said?

“I screwed up,” Yuuri finally said, a crooked, heartbreaking smile forced on his face. His voice wavered. “It was, it was going so well, too. I thought that m-maybe, this year...” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Choked in the end. Wasted the season.”

Viktor’s gaze softened. He knew he couldn’t empathize in all aspects, but he understood the struggles of competition very well. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks.” Yuuri sniffed, though his eyes were dry. “It was too bad, too. I had this exhibition program -- ah, I don’t know if you know what that is. But, it’s special because, because only winners get to actually skate it.” He waved his hands in front of his face. “It was -- it was nice, you know? It was really nice. My ballet teacher and I worked really hard on it. And the music, it was so pretty, too! It was… wait, what’s the name of that piece?” He fell silent for a few seconds, scrunching up his face in concentration. Then it fell, and his eyes widened. “I -- I forgot.”

He looked so visibly distressed by this. Gently, Viktor asked him, “Do you remember how it goes? Could you hum a few bars?”

Yuuri squinted at him. “But… it wasn’t jazz.”

“Try me.”

“Okay. Um, it was like…” He tested out a few notes, one at a time, like he was trying to find the pitch. Eventually he must have settled on the right one, because his face brightened and he broke into a smile.  “Yeah, that was it! [ It goes like](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh36PaE-Pf0), dum-dada-dadada-DAdada-dadada, dum-dada-dadada-DAdada-dadada-dum…”

Viktor froze.

He got the pacing a bit wrong, and he was off-key in a couple of spots. But it was understandable: Viktor didn’t imagine that there could be a dignified way to do justice to this piece with just vocals and humming. He tried anyway, taking over the melody of the right-hand quarter notes starting from bar 3: “Da, da, da… da, da, da…”  The melody climbed, getting louder until it peaked; _ritardando_ for the triplet eighth notes that followed, descending.

Yuuri’s eyes lit up in genuine delight, as though he weren’t expecting Viktor to catch on, much less sing along. What he didn’t know was that, no matter what the medium and execution, Viktor would recognize the opening bars of Debussy’s _Arabesque No. 1_ anywhere.

By the time he started humming the triplets after the rest in bar 6, Yuuri was already dancing.

Viktor’s voice died in his throat very soon after that, but he didn’t need it -- he didn’t need to keep humming when he could hear the music in his head, clear as a bell. His fingers twitched at his sides, eager to play the keys that weren’t there. But the music -- he could hear it in the wind, and in the way Yuuri’s trainers scraped and skipped across the pavement.

And he finally understood, 18 long years too late, what Lilia had been trying to impart to him when she introduced him to this piece. _Beauty is a crushing force of righteousness._  

He could hear bar 15’s high pairs of dotted quarters and eighths in a relentless spin. Yuuri couldn’t glide on concrete, of course, but he ran and leapt and spun in a way that made it look impossibly smooth, and it was easy to buy into the illusion. Bar 27, he stopped abruptly right in front of Viktor, reaching out for him… and then in a beat he was stepping, running backwards, moving away.

He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

Yuuri traced a wide circle along the empty street. He gained speed as the music built up in Viktor’s head. Bar 33. He turned a couple of times to build momentum, and then --

Bar 37. Viktor sucked in his breath as the high note launched Yuuri into the stratosphere. He must have spun four times, before landing gracefully on one foot.

But then he swept his free leg down low until his foot grazed the pavement, forcing himself -- and the music in Viktor’s mind -- to a stop.

“That last jump was a quad salchow,” he announced. He took a couple of seconds to catch his breath, which was a lot less time than Viktor imagined he would need. “I suck at it.”

“Lies,” Viktor said. “That was amazing!”

Yuuri laughed, and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I can’t seem to get the hang of it on the ice. I think… I think I can count on one hand the number of times I landed it in practice. Zero for competitions.” He laughed again, and then pointed at Viktor with a dramatic flourish. “Let that be a lesson! I think? If you love something, don’t -- don’t do it in competition.”

The laugh that hearing that drew from him sounded half like a sigh. Oh, if only he knew. “It’s a bit too late for that now.”

“Hmmm?”

Was it worth it to even keep this conversation going? He considered how drunk Yuuri was, and how hiding in plain sight -- actually, just hiding at all -- was exhausting in his own way. It had been a long day. And maybe he was a bit more drunk than he thought he was, and so: “What would you say if I told you I was a world-famous pianist, once upon a time?”

“I’d believe you.” There wasn’t even a trace of hesitation there. “So you were a world-famous jazz pianist, huh?”

“Classical.” Viktor stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“Ooh. You joined all the competitions?

“I won all the competitions.”

“Wow!” The way Yuuri breathed it out made it seem like he might have been making fun of him, but when Viktor looked at his face, there was just wonder in his eyes. “But… you don’t compete anymore?”

Viktor shook his head. “I walked away from all of that.”

“Why?”

… It seemed like such a simple, innocent question. It felt like, after all these years, he should have had a ready answer by now.

“Viktor?” Yuuri poked him in the side. “Viktor.”

“I just wanted to make everyone happy.” He finally just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. He had to play the words again in his head, digest them and let them settle, and he wasn’t sure if it was relief or disappointment that followed, when he realized they weren’t wrong. “I wanted to surprise people, and I wanted their approval. You know when you’re young, and deep down you just want everyone to like you?…I don’t think I ever outgrew that.”

Yuuri remained silent for a few seconds, before tilting his head. “Does anyone?”

Viktor shrugged. “I don’t know. For the longest time, playing piano was all I could do. Well… I guess that’s still kind of true.” A bitter laugh. “I joined the competitive circuit because, I guess it only made sense at the time. What else was I going to do?”

“But you got out.”

“I was tired,” he whispered. “I was so tired. It wasn’t fun anymore. Everyone already expected so much from me, that it was impossible to surprise them. And the one person that I tried so hard to touch with my music…”

_was out of his reach_

_because none of it had ever mattered_

_and because maybe, just maybe, he’d come up with his one simple rule not just because he didn’t want to get hurt again, but because -- because a part of him was afraid he would turn out like Papa, who loved one person so much that when she was gone, he could just no longer go on_

“Viktor?”

“That’s it. That’s why I quit.” He forced out a laugh. “It’s pathetic, isn’t it? How I wanted so desperately for people to love me, but then gave up the one thing that might've given me a shot at it.”

“That's bullshit.”

He blinked, taken aback. What?

“That’s bullshit,” Yuuri said again, louder this time. His brows were furrowed over widened eyes, and he was trembling, and Viktor didn’t know why. Was he angry? Was he going to cry? Which was it? “We’re not -- we’re not just the sum of the things we’re good at. Things we do for -- for people to watch, and rank, and score us. We’re more than that!”

His throat jerked. Viktor immediately regretted what he’d said, and raised up his hands in a placating gesture. “Ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that you -- ”

“ _You_. Me. Everyone. We’re more than that,” he said. “Aren’t we? We h-have to be. Otherwise… otherwise that’s just sad.”

His shoulders were shaking, and with his head bowed low, Viktor could no longer see his eyes. What was it Yuuri had said about competition, and about having ‘screwed up’ last season? He suddenly felt so, so stupid.

“I’ve upset you. I’m sorry.” Viktor wanted to hug him, but it seemed like too much. He hated the sad look on Yuuri’s flushed face, and he hated that he was the one who’d put it there. Gingerly, he placed his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders, the closest to a hug that he’d allow himself to have. “How do I make it up to you?”

“Mmmnh. It’s fine.”

“No, I mean it. I feel awful. What can I do?”

“In that case…” Yuuri reached up to clasp a hand around Viktor’s wrist, but he didn’t remove the hand from his shoulder. When he looked up, Viktor could see a smile on his face, and that his eyes were thankfully still dry. “Be my musical consultant?”

Whatever it was Viktor had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. “…What?”

“I know, I know, I just said music isn’t all you’re good for… but, you _are_ good at it.” He smiled sweetly, and something fluttered in Viktor’s stomach at the sight. “I haven’t decided on the music for my programs this year.”

“Okay, I… I suppose I can help with that. What music do you like?”

“Nope!” Yuuri’s smile widened. “It doesn’t matter what I like. I want… to take a leap of faith on this one, I think.” He giggled. “You don’t even have to play anything. Just… find some music that will make you feel alive again.” His voice grew louder as his excitement did. “And I promise I’ll skate to whatever you choose.”

This made no sense. _No_ sense whatsoever. He’d never even consider it.

Why was he considering it?

“You know, you really shouldn’t be making these kinds of decisions when you’re drunk,” he said. “You probably won’t remember half of this in the morning.”

“Then you’ll have to remind me.”

Yuuri said it with such nonchalance, like it was already a sure deal, and all they were doing now was discussing particulars. “Why are you doing this? You don’t even know me.” Before Yuuri could speak, he added, “Don’t say this is all just the champagne I’m talking to.”

“Wasn’t gonna.”

A flash of a smile was all the warning he got before Yuuri hugged -- well, practically tackled him to the ground. Now basically straddling him, Yuuri tightened his hold and placed his lips somewhere in the general vicinity of Viktor’s ear.

“If you never touch another piano key again, I could still come up with a hundred reasons why you deserve to be loved.”

And what in the world was he supposed to say to that? Viktor stayed silent, stunned by the words as well as the warmth in his ear that now spread across his face, to his cheeks. His heart thumped in his chest.

No. This didn’t -- this couldn’t mean anything. _One_ rule, he reminded himself. One simple rule.

“…Wait,was that creepy? Shit, I hope that wasn’t creepy.” He felt Yuuri shaking his head, as he’d rested his chin on Viktor’s shoulder. “Sorry. But, um. I mean it. Objectively speaking. Just -- it’s how you always smile at everyone, and how you put up with drunk idiots, and make sure they have someplace to stay, so they don’t freeze to death.”

He pulled back and pointed at himself.  Viktor laughed, which seemed to spark another thought in his mind.

“That! There! The way you laugh. It’s cute. _You’re_ cute. Ah, well, you probably already know that by now.”

He’d been told that before. He’d been paid flowery compliments by far smoother, more confident men in the past. This should not have affected him as much as it just did.

Yuuri suddenly slumped against him, and buried his face in the crook of Viktor’s neck. Viktor was starting to wonder when his little exhibition, and the outburst that followed, would tire him out. “How many was that? Was that a hundred? I can think of more.” He laughed. “But I’d have to get to know you a bit more, I think. Yeah.”

Viktor laughed with him, and held him close. Moonlight and the street lamps cast a pensive glow on them from above, and he slowly came to realize that he’d want nothing more than that.

“Come on, we don’t have much further to go.” He coaxed Yuuri to his feet. “Your hands are freezing. Let’s get you someplace warm, okay?”

It was a struggle to get him up, now that he was practically dead weight. It took nothing short of a miracle to wrangle him up the narrow stairs, through the living room and the storm of an attention-starved Makkachin, and into the bedroom. He managed, somehow, though it almost felt like he was doing it on auto-pilot, with his head too full of easy promises, the smell of champagne and gin, and Debussy’s Arabesque.

He recognized this feeling. He knew it by name.

 _But you have one rule_ , a sad, bitter voice in his mind reminded him. He’d… tasted love, or at least what he’d thought was love at the time, and it had never ended well. What made him think that this time would be any different?

No. Yuuri was drunk out of his mind, and possibly didn’t even mean half of what he’d said. Tonight was… interesting, but it was just one night. Viktor would put him up until morning, let him sleep off all of that alcohol, and maybe never see him again after tomorrow morning.

“Viktor?”

He’d just finished tucking him into bed. He thought Yuuri was already sound asleep by now. “Yes, what do you need?” he asked. “Do you want some water?”

“Mmmh.” Yuuri pulled his arms out from underneath the covers, reached out blindly until he found Viktor’s sleeve, and tugged. “Sing. Singing. You promised.”

Viktor laughed. “You actually remembered that?”

The only response he got was a more violent tug, and the next thing he knew, he was sitting on the bed with Yuuri’s head on his lap, and a vise-like grip around his arm. “You promised,” he said again. “Sing for me, Piano Man.”

Well, then.

Viktor soon found himself staring out the window, into the darkened parking lot outside, and thinking that it shouldn’t be this hard to pick a song. But he wanted this to count, for reasons he _still_ couldn’t quite make sense of, and all of the songs that came to mind seemed to point to the same thing. What was he supposed to do? Offer an ode, for example, to how Yuuri made music when he moved, with something like _‘Walk my way / And a thousand violins begin to play / Or it might be the sound of your hello / That music I hear / I get misty, the moment you're near’_ ? Or was he supposed to draw from his memories of earlier tonight, when Yuuri had danced and dazzled and held him, whisper _‘Quand il me prend dans ses bras / Il me parle tout bas / Je vois la vie en rose’_ in a song?

Or would it be more honest to just admit: _‘I fall in love too easily / I fall in love too fast / I fall in love too terribly hard / For love to ever last’_?

In the end, he still hadn’t decided by the time he heard a soft snore from the head on his lap. With a fond smile, he ran his fingers through soft black strands, and told himself he would figure this all out in the morning.

But for now?

 _“Stars shining bright above you_  
_Night breezes seem to whisper 'I love you'_  
_Birds singing in a sycamore tree_ _  
Dream a little dream of me…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Rossini: [_Un regret, un espoir_ , for piano in E major](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjEh3BZlkUc) (Péchés de vieillesse)  
> \- Gershwin: [Rhapsody in Blue](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynEOo28lsbc) performed by Libor Pesek and the Slovak National Philharmonic Orchestra  
> \- Ravel: [Piano Concerto in G major](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b4-rXhKpMM), performed here by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli with Ettore Gracis and the Philharmonia Orchestra  
> \- Milhaud: [_La Création du monde_ , Op. 81a](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3GPtgY9hSQ) with Leonard Bernstein and the Orchestre National de France  
> \- John Lewis’ [Afternoon in Paris](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMLUGR-Pys8), performed by Kenny Drew, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, and Ed Thigpen  
> \- _La Vie en Rose_ : [by Edith Piaf](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt7y8y1Axcs) | Piano solo by Louis Guglielmi  
> \- [I Fall in Love Too Easily](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zrSoHgAAWo) by Chet Baker, Russ Freeman, Carson Smith, and Bob Neel  
> \- [I Get Along Without You Very Well](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgbPHTBiAVQ) also by Chet Baker, Russ Freeman (on piano and celesta!), Carson Smith, and Bob Neel  
> \- [Born to Be Blue](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y11EHQAGhU) by Chet Baker, Bobby Scott, and Kenny Burrell  
> \- Misty by Erroll Garner: [’that Johnny Mathis song’](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JwhJMFDybQ) | [piano solo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-UjwvJ0eeA) performed by Jeff Williams  
> \- [In the Mood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CI-0E_jses) by Glenn Miller  
> \- [Almost Blue](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4PKzz81m5c) by Chet Baker with Hein Van de Geyn, John Engels, and Harold Danko  
> \- Fly Me To The Moon: there are a thousand and one versions of this popular song! [This upbeat arrangement](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx0WezYptns) sounds like it’d be right up Mila’s alley (and Viktor’s, too) -- with Bijan Taghavi, Lou Savage, and John Ferraro  
> And here are the links to the newly-updated playlists!: [jazz](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1Rw0FqbhdFBtILc-IzVb_qQ4EkcL65nK) | [classical](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1Rw0FqbhdFClF-wG-rYCaIXoFF92Cxyu)
> 
> Translations for the longer non-English bits:  
> \- Viktor’s ‘disclaimer’ in the metro: “All music performed or likely to be performed is either my own composition or is of traditional origins.” Literally pulled it from [here](http://alex-wilding.com/2014/03/busking-in-italy/).  
> \- _La Vie en Rose_ lyrics he considers singing in the final scene: “When he takes me in his arms / He speaks to me in a low voice / I see life as if it were rose-tinted”  
>  \- Viktor's aria snippets = the first half of [_Stammi Vicino_](http://yurionice.wikia.com/wiki/Aria:_Stay_Close_to_Me), the aria/solo version (link has an 'English Translation' tab)
> 
> So after last chapter, I thought, ‘hey you’ve only got four more years to cover, the next one shouldn’t be so long’. Heh. Whoops.
> 
> Anyway, sorry it took so long! Besides the length of the chapter, there were a couple of monkey wrenches thrown into real life (thanks, universe), hectic work being hectic, and also a Viktuuri project for [this event](http://yurionicebigbang.tumblr.com) that will be coming out within the month. If you’re into magic AU, watch this space, etc., etc.
> 
> Acknowledgments and shout-outs! As always, @Pigfarts23’s musical knowledge has been invaluable, especially in this chapter for notes on the Stammi Vicino composition, and All. That. Jazz. And SPEAKING of jazz, @tamashirokaori on tumblr made art for [the chalkboard sign](http://tamashirokaori.tumblr.com/post/161987047339/i-made-the-chalkboard-from-the-first-chapter-of) in Chapter 1, and it’s (Viktor-voice) amazing!
> 
> (Next chapter: Back to our regular programming! GP assignments finally come out, and It’s A Small World After All)


	9. Whisper Low

Yuuri wakes up sometime in the middle of the night, facedown with his cheek pressed against the pillow. He can’t see the alarm clock, and he’s in no way willing to expend the effort needed to grab his phone from the night table. But he’s facing the small window, sort of, and through bleary eyes he can see just enough how dark it still is outside.

What time is it? He doesn’t know. He’s about to wonder what woke him up, but it becomes clear in the next second when he registers soft, small pads of pressure on what feels like random points on his back. Pressing, releasing -- pressing elsewhere, releasing there.

And there’s a sound… something soft, and low, and sweet.

“ _… le tue mani, le tue gambe… le mie mani, le mie gambe…_ ”

He feels the warmth beside him shifting, breathing. Oh, he thinks he knows what this is now: Viktor’s fingers, dancing over the bare skin of his back while he hums.

Yuuri strains to listen, but all he picks up are a few bars that, while he doesn’t exactly remember hearing them before, still sound strangely familiar somehow. There’s probably harmony, he guesses, in how Viktor’s hands move in time, before he stops himself -- “No, wait,” Viktor whispers, and when he starts again, it’s the same melody that he hums, but the motion of his hands has changed.

It’s only so long before Yuuri can’t stop a shiver from the fingers ghosting over his back, and has to stop pretending to be asleep. He stirs and lifts his head. “Viktor?”

The humming and the fingers stop right away. “Hey.” Viktor lets out a short, embarrassed laugh. “Sorry, I kept telling myself to stop -- believe it or not, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay. I believe you.” He stifles a yawn. “What was it?”

“Hmmm?”

“That song you were playing. Er, humming. Or both?” Yuuri pushes himself up off the bed only long enough to turn his head to face Viktor, before flopping back down. “Have I heard it before?”

“Part of it. Not that part.” Viktor kisses his temple, before pulling back and retreating to his side of the bed. “Go back to sleep. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

 

* * *

 

Several more mornings have to pass, though, before Viktor plays the completed piece for him at the piano, with Makkachin at his feet and Yuuri sitting on the couch a few feet away, mesmerized. Hand-written sheet music in multiple colors of ink on various sizes of paper, complete with erasures and testament to how long it’s been a work in progress, sits on the music desk.

He says that he doesn’t have a final title for it yet, but he’s got a working one in mind: _Stammi Vicino,_ ‘Stay Close to Me’. “Well?” Viktor lingers at the piano long after he’s stopped playing, running the pads of his fingers along the length of the keyslip. “What do you think?”

“I love it,” Yuuri enthuses. The music he first heard a couple of months ago that, while hauntingly beautiful, felt so incomplete to the point of frustration, has now been resolved to perfection. It feels like it would be a sin _not_ to use it for his free skate, now that he’s heard it. “Can I still really skate to it?”

“Of course,” Viktor smiles. There’s a look of something that resembles relief on his face. “This song is yours, after all. Let me just get a good recording of it, and then it’s all yours to do with as you please.”

Yuuri looks at the mess of sheet music again, and tries to get an idea of just how long Viktor had been composing this piece. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been surer.” Viktor finally takes his hands off the piano when he bends down to give Makkachin a soft pat on the head. “I’m only sorry that it took as much time as it did. I hope it serves you well -- in your competitions, but also just in general.”

Yuuri hopes so too. The music is only a part of it, of course. He has to think of the rest of the choreography, and what program components to put in. Is his quad sal really going to be ready by the time the season starts? And then there’s an exhibition skate to plan, and oh God _costumes…_

That train of thought promises to lead him nowhere good any time soon, so he takes a detour. “Say, would you have used this? For yourself?”

Viktor gives him a questioning look. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, for _your_ competitions…” Yuuri gestures vaguely at the piano. “I was just wondering. Would you have played something like this? Would you have won with it?”

“Oh, no.” Viktor explains to him while fondly stroking Makkachin’s head that it wouldn’t have worked that way. A lot of competitions have set lists of pieces that he would choose to perform. And while there are some others that would allow original compositions in theory, there are countless other pieces out there that can showcase one’s technical prowess more. “Now, a concert, on the other hand,” he adds in afterthought, “that’s different. You can play whatever you like. Well, to an extent.”

“I see.” And then, without thinking, he adds, “That’s too bad.”

“What is?”

Shit. He really didn’t mean to say that out loud. He wonders if he can somehow un-speak the words by physically backpedaling. “Ahh, nothing, I was just -- I was just thinking to myself, that’s all. I would’ve loved to see you in concert… in person, I mean. Youtube doesn’t count.” He realizes where this train of thought is going and shakes his head. “But it’s okay! I know you don’t miss it, and besides, I already get to see you perform with the band whenever I want.”

Viktor chuckles. “I wonder what that would even sound like. I can already see the headlines back home. ‘Viktor Nikoforov, classical piano’s prodigal son, seeks to capture the light of dead stars’... or something to that effect.” He eases into a smile before Yuuri can comment. “Would you have really wanted to see that?”

“Not that headline. But the concert? I think so. Yeah.” Yuuri shrugs. “But more than that, I want to see Viktor Nikiforov do whatever makes Viktor Nikiforov happy.”

A spell of silence settles over the room, stifling. Yuuri winces, and his cheeks burn. Was it too much, should he take it back? He wants to take it back.

But when he dares to look at Viktor again, all he sees on the pianist’s face is wonder. “You…” Viktor shakes his head. “You always say these things so casually. They come out so easy.”

Yuuri can’t tell if that's supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing. “I'm… sorry?”

“No, don't be,” Viktor responds quickly. “It's very sweet. You have no idea how much it warms the heart.”

“Um.” Yuuri finds himself averting his eyes and fighting back the urge to blurt out something random that would ruin the moment. What he doesn’t get to say is that Viktor _himself_ says these things so casually too. The only difference is that when Viktor says them, more often than not Yuuri finds himself tongue-tied.

The quick kiss that Viktor steals on his cheek frays that train of thought. He laughs at the look on Yuuri's face. “Don't overthink it,” he says as he playfully ruffles Yuuri’s hair, and starts cleaning up. “Now that I have my client’s verbal approval, I need to go get this printed. Do you want to stay here or come with?”

“I'll come with, to the bus station at least.”

“Ahh, you're training today? But it's Sunday, no?”

“Yeah, but I promised Phichit we’d brainstorm costume ideas this morning.” Between the jazzy _Lullaby of Birdland_ short program and the free skate with this piece that he's just heard in full, and doesn’t even have choreography for, he has no idea where to start.

“Sounds exciting.” Viktor winks at him. Yuuri has no idea what for, but it _still_ affects him and honestly, shouldn’t that have stopped happening by now? Apparently not. “Dinner tonight, then?”

“Right.”

As Viktor goes to change, Yuuri sinks down onto the couch and heaves a sigh. It’s been almost a week and there’s still a part of himself that isn’t yet convinced that this is all quite real.

It’s not as though he’s completely new to the idea of someone being close to him, in spite of the less-than-agreeable parts of his personality that often serve, whether he wants it or not, to push people away. There’s his family, and of course Minako-sensei back home, a constant presence in his childhood. Phichit just barged his way in and stuck around until Yuuri felt comfortable with him, which… took some time, in the beginning.

But with Viktor, even now, it’s like everything is all exciting and terrifying and new. It’s not like the concept of a romantic relationship is entirely alien to him; he’s been Phichit’s and Mari’s sounding boards before, and he hasn’t been completely oblivious to what goes on around him. It’s just, everything he and Viktor have shared -- meeting in bars, going on coffee dates, falling asleep pillowed in each other’s laps and lashing out over mistrust and hurt feelings through a doorway, before making up weeks later with a kiss -- all of those, they always felt like things that only ever happen to other people, while Yuuri… just watches. Or lingers in their orbit, keeping a safe distance, trying to get by.

Sitting down while entertaining these kinds of thoughts gets him too restless, and he jumps back to his feet. He finds himself drifting to the piano, staring at the dormant keys. He recalls bits of the melody from the piece Viktor was just playing here, a few minutes ago. _His free skate music_ , at last _._ Can he really do justice to it? When he can barely make sense of his own feelings?

Something behind the score on the music desk catches his eye. Right, there are several pieces of paper here, but he doesn’t remember Viktor actually turning all the pages. Curious, he reaches out and pulls back a corner of the visible sheet, exposing the paper beneath.

He doesn’t know nearly enough about music to make full sense of what he’s seeing, but it seems like it’s very similar to the page Viktor was playing from. An older version of the same piece, maybe? But the biggest difference is that this one has bigger spaces between the lines with the bars and notes, where Viktor has actually scribbled some words. They look like Italian -- annotations? Or could they be lyrics?

A loud bark interrupts his musings. He gets a full two seconds’ head start, just enough time to place all the sheets back where they were, before he’s tackled by a very attention-starved Makkachin. Through the flurry of tail wags and dog kisses, he sees Viktor smiling at him fondly. “Ready?”

 

* * *

 

 _“I don’t understand. First you wanted to skate to this piece, then you changed your mind and wanted to switch back to the Massenet one. And now you want to come back to this_ again _??”_

Yuuri winces. He doesn't know how it's possible that a tiny Facetime screen of Minako-sensei’s face beamed from thousands of miles away is somehow just as intimidating as being in front of the real thing. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not ideal.”

 _“‘Not ideal’,”_ she stresses, complete with mocking finger quotes, _“would be bumping up a jump in real time to make up for a botched one earlier in your program._ This _is something else altogether. Are you sure you’ve thought this through?”_

“Yes.” The word comes out sounding fake. Damn it. “Of course.”

Nope, she’s not buying it either. _“You never did tell me about the person who composed this for you.”_ She leans in closer until her face is the only thing he can see. _“Is it him? Is he pressuring you to change your music?”_

“No -- ”

_“I’ll kill him!”_

It takes a few minutes, with placating hand gestures and a lot of repetition, but he eventually convinces her that that’s not the case -- that it’s actually the other way around, and that _he’s_ the one who’s committed to using this piece for his free skate this year. That calms her down a little bit, and a few carefully-chosen questions about choreography steer her away from pursuing the nosier questions he knows she wants to ask. He still doesn’t know when he’s going to tell her -- _if_ he’s going to tell her -- that he and Viktor are dating now.

He and Viktor are dating now. That _still_ sounds so unreal, somehow.

 _“So it does get more uplifting in the middle… right after the spot where it was last cut off, anyway.”_ The conversation has shifted entirely to choreography now. Yuuri takes notes on a paper napkin from the burrito place he and Phichit visited last night. _“And the way it ends now is a lot more positive than last time.”_

“Does it sound more like triumph, or more like hope for the future?”

 _“That’s… actually not a bad question. Wait.”_ She plays the last twenty or so seconds of the piece on her end several times before shrugging. _“It's hard to tell. It could go either way. This is the full piece, right? There isn’t any other information that we have to work with?”_

Yuuri hedges on that, remembering the words he saw on one of the musical sheets before. He wonders if they could be important. But if they were, Viktor would have mentioned them by now, wouldn't he? “That’s everything.”

 _“Then let’s get to work!”_ She takes a few steps back, enough for him to see the rest of her studio, and for her to do a full, graceful twirl right in the middle of it. _“We need to spin this into a comeback-worthy free skate to match your short program, and there are only so many days before September!”_

Yuuri is so fixated on the Grand Prix, and when it usually starts, that something short-circuits in his brain it processes what she just said. “…September?”

And that’s how he gets yelled at by Minako-sensei for a full minute and a half anyway, because of course, how could he forget: last year’s Nationals, and dear gods what a disaster that was. Obviously she doesn’t use that word, but it’s the only one that sounds right in Yuuri’s mind whenever it replays that event for him. And wow, does his mind replay it often.

Still, it’s the little things that he remembers most vividly: the corner of one of the sponsors’ stickers peeling off from the wall behind the Kiss and Cry, the too-bright lights overhead, and the low murmur of Celestino’s voice coming from everywhere at once, though Yuuri tried his best not to look at him -- which is doubly strange, because Yuuri can’t remember an actual word the man said that day. He fell to eleventh place that day, a shocking tumble that brought about whispers of an injury. Yuuri wanted to scream at them then, not because they were wrong, but because _why?_ Why would they think that? _Why would you give me the benefit of the doubt, why did you still believe?_

That’s what Minako-sensei is expecting him to ‘come back’ from. That’s why he has to completely reinvent himself this season, this final season, and that’s why he can’t afford to come up short. That’s why he’s taking risks and making choices that last-year’s-Yuuri might have never even considered.

That’s why it’s so terrifying. And when the noise in his head threatens to undo him, it’s what drives him to a restless jog to _Butcher’s Keys_ at midnight, where he waits until the band takes a break so that he can catch Viktor backstage, and try to reclaim some of his sanity.

“So you have to work your way up from regional qualifiers. Or else you won’t be eligible for… ah, the Grand Prix, was it?”

“Worlds,” Yuuri says. “Well it’s that, then Nationals, then Four Continents, then Worlds. The Grand Prix series is something else altogether.”

“Wow. It sounds hectic.”

“I guess.” Yuuri takes a swig from the bottle of water that Viktor offers him, and tries not to stare after he hands it back and Viktor does the same. Viktor has always been easy on the eyes, but he’s especially dashing when he’s working -- something about the lighting and the smoke, and the clothes. Tonight he’s in mohair, a slim black suit over a white shirt with a spread collar, and a skinny tie hanging around his neck. Yuuri wonders if that tie was ever done at some point earlier in the night, or if Viktor just walked into the bar like this.

“Yuuri?”

“Uh.” He snaps back to the present, and realizes he was staring after all.

He asks about Viktor’s night, and how it’s been going so far. He says they’ve got a huge crowd in there tonight, and Yuuri believes him because of the din from the main bar area that he can hear. At Viktor’s gentle prodding, Yuuri eventually admits what’s been bothering him more than he’d like: the free skate music, the piece of which Viktor composed half for him, and how the choreography has been slow-going and uncertain, despite Minako-sensei’s best efforts.

“Hmmm. I’m very much a follower of the ‘death of the author’ school of thought… though I suppose in this case, it would be the death of the _composer_.” Viktor chuckles. “I could give you my intentions, walk you through the thoughts that were swirling in my head before they went into each measure. But then, would you really be able to connect to that performance? As opposed to one in which the interpretation came from within?”

Yuuri supposes he has a point there. “‘No’ would’ve worked just as fine,” he mumbles.

Viktor offers him a very tender smile. “Do you really want me to tell you?”

“No, you’re right,” he sighs. “The piece is beautiful, thank you. I’m sure I’ll figure something out. I just hope I can do it justice.” A pause. “It’s all completely abstract, though. Not like there are words to it or anything.”

If Viktor knows he’s being baited, he doesn’t show it. He just smiles wider, which makes his eyes crinkle up at the sides. “I’m very excited to see what you come up with.”

Later, while jogging home, Yuuri starts to wonder more and more if it’s possible that he just imagined seeing those words on that page.

 

* * *

 

“Skate Americaaaaa!” Phichit hollers. “You and me! Yes!!!”

It’s the same ritual as last year, and the year before that. If someone asks Yuuri what he’s been up to for the past twelve hours, he imagines there’s an infinite number of answers that would be more dignified than ‘sitting with Phichit and blindly refreshing the ISU’s website on his laptop’, and none of them would be true. In the end -- and they keep forgetting about this every year as well -- they didn’t need to camp out like they did, because they would have known when it was time to check by the dozen pings and notifications they got in rapid succession on their phones: _Congratulations, good luck, do your best! Minako-sensei wants to fly over_. Et cetera. 

“Chicago-style hotdogs! Deep dish pizza! _Got a dream to take us there, we’re cooomin’ to America!_ ”

“That’s not how that song goes.” Yuuri can’t help but smile, because his enthusiasm is contagious. “What about your other event?”

“Cup of China, it looks like. Ohhh that jet lag’s going to be so awful, I can already feel it. But hey, I get to see Guang Hong both times.” Phichit’s fingers fly over his phone at a mile a minute, probably to tell Guang Hong just that. “What about you?”

Yuuri squints to find the second instance of his name in the dense matrix of them on the page. He eventually finds it all the way on the other side of the screen. “Rostelecom Cup.”

“Eww.” Phichit makes a face. “I mean, Moscow’s great, but you’ve got to wait a full month between your events.”

That wait is going to be agonizing, Yuuri thinks to himself. He stares at his name under the header reading ‘Rostelecom Cup: Moscow / RUS’ and thinks of Viktor, and how he hasn’t been home in almost five years. Does he have any desire to visit, and is he supposed to ask? Or would that be too awkward?

He decides that that’s a problem for later when he notices that Yuri Plisetsky’s name has been written right under his. In fact, when he glances back at the column for Skate America, he sees that Yuri’s going to be there too. Well. That should be interesting.

The rest of Skate America’s lineup, aside from himself, Yuri, and Phichit, is made up of familiar names: Guang Hong Ji, Michele Crispino, and… “Looks like we’re both going against Chris right out of the gate,” he comments.

“Yup. You more than me, though.”

Yuuri frowns. “What do you mean by that?”

“Wait, you haven’t heard?” Phichit puts his phone down and pulls his laptop onto his lap, opening up Youtube in a new tab. “I should’ve figured as much, when you didn’t bring it up first. It was a couple of days ago -- ah, let me see if I can find that video again.”

“What video?”

Phichit ignores him. “Found it! I win -- wait.” Just as he’s about to replace the laptop onto the space in front of them, Phichit pulls it back and squints at him. “Do you choose the door of blissful ignorance, or the door of possibly discomforting knowledge?”

Yuuri has played enough of these games with Phichit to know more or less how he’s supposed to answer. “Um… which door would you choose, if you were me?”

“I like to rip off band-aids.”

“Right.” He sighs. “Show me?”

The video Phichit’s pulled up is only three days old, but is already on its way to 100,000 views. Yuuri thinks he gets the appeal, though; it opens with Christophe Giacometti blowing a kiss to the camera, after all.

Someone who isn’t the cameraman asks him if he has time to answer a few questions, and Chris, being the gracious social butterfly that he is, agrees without a second thought. He talks about his cat and drops vague hints _(_ ‘ _Swing! Cut-outs!’)_ about his costume choices for this season. He mentions that he wants to improve on last season’s gold at the GPF, silver at Euros, and gold again at Worlds. And he talks about his musical choices this year: something orchestral and grand for his free skate; sexy and jazzy for his short program.

“…Oh,” Yuuri says. Oh.

“Yup,” Phichit agrees.

_“Not a lot of people know this about me, but there was a time two seasons ago -- early in that season, September, October, around that time -- when I was in something of a slump.”_

A rinkmate yells out something in German to him from off-camera. Chris indulges them with a huge grin and another flying kiss.

_“It was the night after Skate Canada, actually, and I was due to fly back to Switzerland in the morning. I took a cab into the city. I wasn't thinking. And then, I met this bartender.”_

It looks like this video might be spliced together from practice footage and the actual interview, as it abruptly cuts to a few seconds of skating. Chris gives the camera a come-hither look before throwing himself into a quad lutz, _his_ quad lutz, and Yuuri has never seen a more beautiful jump in his life. Where did that height, that power even come from? And then -- did he just do it again??

 _“I don't know what it was -- the drinks he made, the music, or maybe those gorgeous baby blues of his.”_ When the video cuts back, Chris is wearing a dreamy look on his face, pronounced by those endless lashes that flicker as he blinks. _“But talking to him, listening to him and realizing some things he and I had in common, it helped me to realize. How we are, all of us, sustained by the things that we love. How, at the end of the day, I still love this sport with all my soul. How I still have so much love left to give.”_

Cut to more practice footage. It's a step sequence now, but the performance is more arresting to watch when you focus above the knee. Pouted lips, a wink or three, dips and lunges that are downright scandalous. _‘Baby don't you know that it's rude / To keep my two lips waiting when I'm in the mood?’_ The music, sassy and full of swing, swells as the camera focuses on Chris running his hands up the sides of his thighs, parking them higher, _squeezing_. Holy hell.

Cut back to the interview. _“That night he and I spent together -- ”_ A cheer goes up in the bleachers somewhere behind the cameraman. _“That night we spent together rejuvenated me more than you'd know. Victor Simcoe, if you're out there watching this: know that because of you, this old man isn't going down without a fight.”_

The rest of the video is composed of more clips of Chris skating, against the rest of the song -- his short program music, if Yuuri had to guess -- playing in the background. The comments are a mixed bag of excitement for this coming season, surprise and sympathy at the revelation about his prior slump, and random speculation on who that mysterious Canadian bartender might be. Yuuri cares about precisely none of those right now. “ _Why_ ,” is all he can manage to whisper, in disbelief.

“Is that a ‘why’ to the jazz, or a ‘why’ to the quad lutz-triple toe combo he’s promising?” Phichit probably understands the wordless, despairing noise he makes, because he smiles and pats him on the head. “I'm sure it was just a coincidence. There are only so many genres of music out there, and not everyone skates to a song about themselves like JJ.”

Yuuri groans. “Of all the skaters and all the seasons…” He goes back to the part in the video where Chris grabs his own butt and points as it plays from there. “How is anyone supposed to go up against that?”

“Mmmm I don’t know,” Phichit muses. “Your program’s really sexy too, you know.”

“Don’t patronize.”

“Not patronizing!” he insists. “Especially that part in the beginning where you kind of stop and turn, and do this.”

Phichit jumps to his feet, does a little twirl, and mimics that part of the introduction to Yuuri’s program -- complete with the cock of the head, and that smirk that makes Yuuri flush now that he’s witnessing it from an outsider’s point of view. Is that what he looks like? “Stop,” he mumbles.

“But it’s true, Ciao-Ciao _still_ wants to know how and when you came up with that.”

Yuuri pauses. What was he thinking about, when he came up with that move? He’s been practicing it for so long that the history of the program has started to blur in his mind, but he remembers a little bit. That part of the intro wasn’t in the original choreography, it was --

Oh. His cheeks burn when he recalls. That’s right: he was thinking about Viktor.

He doesn’t tell anyone this, least of all Phichit. But the next time he takes to the ice for a run-through of his short program, he secretly takes Viktor with him, if only in his head. As the opening notes play, he calls to mind the sight of Viktor at the piano, charming against the haze of smoke and the bar’s low light. He imagines Viktor playing only for him, _singing_ only for him. And in turn, Yuuri dances only for Viktor.

It helps. Barely after getting into his final pose, he’s treated to cheers and whistles from some of the club members who were watching from the bleachers. Phichit yells something about letting Yuuri step on him from all the way on the other side of the rink. Celestino, all smiles and praises and boisterous laughter, claps him too hard on the shoulder.

But it’s not enough. His technical scores have been okay at best, and every year it’s been getting harder for his presentation scores to bridge the gap. He obsesses over it one night, watching videos of his fellow competitors’ performances on his phone. On his own, he has his quad toe and salchow, sort of -- but so does Yuri Plisetsky, and the younger skater’s salchow is a lot better than his. Right now, Seung-gil Lee is the only one who’s able to land a quad loop, but if his half-dozen interviews are anything to go by, JJ might land one this year. And then there’s Chris, with his giant quad lutz.

Yuuri makes a chart, which is silly; he already knows what the conclusions are. But seeing those boxes filled in on a spreadsheet somehow makes it feel more real. And since there are still debates going on as to whether a quadruple axel is even possible at all…

“A quad _flip?_ ” Celestino’s eyebrows shoot up at the inevitable question, like they might be trying to escape to his hairline. “No, it’s never been done before. Leroy talked about it a big game, but he went for the lutz instead. Altin has that one practice video where he got close, but it was under-rotated in the end.”

“Right.” Yuuri saw that video last night. He watched it over and over again to try to spot what went wrong and what went well. The takeoff was good, and it wasn’t like he popped the jump. He just wasn’t airborne for long enough, and that made all the difference.

“Listen, if you want it enough, you’ll make it happen. It just might not be this year.”

But it has to be, he wants to say. It has to be, because Chris has a jazzy program and a quad lutz in a combo, and he is sex on ice. Because Yuri Plisetsky is making his senior debut with crazy perfect jumps, and his free program is part of a piano concerto that Viktor played. Because, because.

Because at the end of the day, Yuuri wants to bounce back from last year’s disappointment so badly. His comeback is in September, and he still hasn’t figured out how to do justice to his own free skate music. And he’s planning to retire at the end of the season, so he needs _something._ How can he even begin to word that, and how does he say it all out loud?

He doesn’t, which is why Celestino rests a hand on his shoulder and steers him towards the boards. “You’ll want to tighten up that triple flip. It’s good, but you’ll want it to be better than perfect before you can try the quad. Really give it some room for that extra rotation. Of course, you realize that before you even think about quad flips, I’ll want to see a cleaner, more consistent quad sal from you.”

“Of course.”

“And Yuuri?” Celestino stops him before he can get back to the ice. “It’s good to see that you’ve set your mind to achieving something great. Just remember, these competitions aren’t fought in the air. You understand?”

Yuuri nods. He does understand, and he knows that his coach means well. He knows that he wants to manage Yuuri’s expectations.

It’s okay -- or if not, it’ll all be okay in the end. His last season is about to begin, and he’s going to make the most of it, no matter what it takes.

 

* * *

 

For all that Yuuri moves with grace on the ice and likes to think that he carries himself with some modicum of the thing everywhere else, finally being with Viktor feels like having to learn how to walk all over again.

It’s not that he doesn’t love him -- despite his own reservations stopping him from saying the actual word out loud, Yuuri has stopped denying this much to himself. Viktor, despite and maybe even because of his imperfections, is very easy to love. Yuuri admits that. He embraces it. But the devil is in the details, and so too is the struggle. How many times a day are you supposed to check up on your boyfriend, especially when he never locks his damn front door? And when you can only reliably see each other on weekends because of your crazy conflicting schedules, how much time do you try to make up for that throughout the week? Phichit says, _‘You’ll find a rhythm, you’ll figure it out!’_ but Phichit is an eternal optimist like that, and he doesn’t understand just how much Yuuri _has no idea what he’s doing_.

Oh, and speaking of -- there’s that, too. There are things he feels terrible about Googling, things he’ll never dare ask Phichit or anyone else about.

Viktor is patient, so patient. He’ll smile softly when Yuuri fumbles and steer his hands when they freeze up, _like this, here._ He’ll pull back every once in awhile to make sure Yuuri’s okay, and he’ll tell Yuuri gently when something doesn’t work, or when it hurts. And Yuuri will feel awful and apologize a thousand and one times and hope for the world to swallow him whole, but Viktor will always coax him back out.

“You aren’t going to break me,” Viktor tells him one night. Yuuri stares at the expanse of alabaster under his open shirt, and swallows hard.

They’ve made it work so far, somehow. Yuuri tries harder, and Viktor meets him halfway. There are days, just like there have always been, when Yuuri wakes up overwhelmed by the sound of his own voice in his head, and on those days Viktor will fill the space between them with music and laughter to drown it all out, until Yuuri feels grounded again. Other days, other nights, Yuuri shows up at his door smarting from the world, needing an escape, and Viktor lets him in and makes him tea, and wraps a blanket around his shoulders. And he’s just… there. And that’s comforting. He’s always there.

Viktor’s there when Yuuri walks into his apartment on a random, sweltering Sunday in August to find him sitting in the dark, [ trying to break his piano](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhj7hunyVjw).

“That’s… that’s from some concerto, isn’t it?”

“It is. Do you recognize which one?” When Yuuri shakes his head, Viktor balls his hands into fists on top of his knees, and stares at them. “Time erodes everything, it really does. The notes are there, the muscle memory is there, but there’s something nameless that’s been taken away. It’s frustrating.”

“It sounded nice to me, for whatever that’s worth.” Probably not much, he infers from the look on Viktor’s face. He keeps going, anyway. “Um… why are you practicing it? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Viktor smiles wryly at his hands. “Lofty ambitions, and moments of temporary insanity. I thought, that maybe…” He trails off and forces his smile up at Yuuri. “I’m sorry, today is… not the best of days.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Yuuri approaches the piano slowly, trying to catch his eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Viktor starts playing again, which is probably an answer in its own way.

Yuuri takes a seat on the arm of the couch and closes his eyes. It’s easier this way, to get lost in the rich, dramatic music coming from the piano, its tones flirting with something that almost feels dark. He’s gotten so used to associating Viktor with jazz that sometimes, if only for a moment, Yuuri forgets that Viktor grew up having trained and competed in a completely different style, and still carries all of that knowledge and experience with him. This piece he’s playing now, whatever it is, is beautiful in a haunting way. Nothing from what Yuuri hears strikes him as discordant; maybe Viktor fixed whatever was bothering him, and maybe it’s better now.

Or maybe it’s not, because in the next second his hands deliberately come crashing down with neither grace nor measure. Makkachin barks from the other side of the room, and Viktor looks like he absolutely hates himself for it.

“It’s just stupid,” he finally says. “It’s been so long. It doesn’t even _mean_ anything anymore. But… I can’t quite turn off the part of my brain that keeps track of time in years, no matter how much I try. Milestones and all that. You know? Stupid.”

Oh, it's one of _those_ days. Yuuri has many of those himself: he has the first time he froze up and landed none of his jumps in a junior competition, and the first time he fell and seriously injured himself during practice etched in his mind. More recently, he has this past season's Nationals. He decides not to ask the question that would usually follow after that. “How can I help?”

“I don’t know. I just -- I think I need to _not_ think. For awhile, anyway.”

"Well..." Yuuri tries desperately to come up with something that isn't completely useless. "What did you do last year? I mean -- what would you usually do?"

"Usually I'd be halfway through a bottle of vodka by this time. Really makes the day go by quick."

Yuuri bites on his lip. He stares at the floor. What is he supposed to say to that?

“Tell me about your day.” Viktor scoots over to the side and pats the space next to him on the bench. “How was training, and how’s the choreography coming? Or anything else you want to say. Let’s… let’s just talk about you tonight. Is that okay?”

Yuuri takes the seat, but ends up just chewing on his lip for half a minute or so.

It's not until Viktor reaches out, and gently rests Yuuri's head on his shoulder, that he finally murmurs that he's exhausted -- that he's upped the technical difficulty of both of his programs because he wants to win this year, he really does, and there's no other way he can think of to do it. But it's draining. His feet hurt. Everything hurts. Viktor squeezes his shoulder once, asking, ‘this?’ Yuuri landed hard on that shoulder after botching a flip that only netted him three and a half spins in the end, and says again, ‘everything’.

But that's helping neither of them. And Viktor doesn't look like he's in any mood to contribute -- at least, not verbally anyway, as he [ starts playing a slow, jazzy piece](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNcRqKP-N9c) whose melody sounds like a balm for the soul.

So he takes a deep breath, letting the soft, dreamy music wash over him.

And then, he talks about good things: things like Minako-sensei’s praises for his new free skate piece, and how practically everyone at the Detroit Skating Club is not-so-secretly in love with the Sticky Splinters’ arrangement of _Lullaby of Birdland_. How he and Phichit are going to be together for Skate America in October, and how the universe has thrown him and Yuri Plisetsky against each other in both of their Grand Prix events. There’s a part of himself that was actually relieved that he was assigned to two events this year at all -- even though, now that he thinks about it, it was silly to even worry. Phichit and Celestino both did the math in front of him with a lot of assurance that there was nothing to worry about, that he’d be fine. It’s just so, so hard to shake the disaster from last season from his mind.

He doesn’t say that last part out loud, of course. Yuuri’s never been one to talk too much about himself, so it doesn’t take long for him to run out of things to say. It happens at about the same time that the piece starts winding down anyway, and when he glances up, he realizes he’s close enough to notice the bags under Viktor’s eyes.

“Tired?” he whispers. Viktor makes a sound that Yuuri can’t quite decipher, and he lifts his head from the pianist’s shoulder, squinting. “Please tell me you slept when you got back from work this morning.”

“Um.” Viktor shakes his head.  “I’ll catch up tonight. Have you had dinner? Did you want to go out? I can rally, I promise.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Yuuri leans his head on Viktor’s shoulder again, if only to stop him from getting up.  “We’ll move when you want to, okay? For now, just stay.”

Viktor lets out a breath. “Just like this?”

“Just like this.”

True to his words, neither of them moves for some time after that. Finally, after a few seconds, Viktor wraps an arm around his waist, and Yuuri shifts so that he’s even closer. Until he’s close enough to feel the rise and fall of Viktor’s chest, and if he concentrates hard enough, he can just make out the rhythm of the pianist’s heartbeat.

“Does this remind you of something?”

Yuuri draws a blank. “Is it supposed to?”

“Never mind.” Viktor lets out a little chuckle, and presses a kiss against the top of Yuuri’s head. “This is nice.”

It is. It really is. They stay like that for a few minutes, enjoying the silence and the shared warmth.

Yuuri stares at the piano in front of him, and he isn’t sure what drives him to do it, but he reaches out and taps on the lowest key. The sound fills the room in an instant and makes him jerk; was it supposed to be that loud?

He presses it again, softer. The sound acquiesces, though it keeps the same pitch. Interesting. He tries again, even softer this time. And then harder, louder, the sounds coming in a steady, insistent rhythm from somewhere in his head.

“ _Hear the tolling of the bells, iron bells,_ ” Viktor solemnly declares. “ _What a world of solemn thought their monody compels --_ ”

“Shut up,” Yuuri laughs. He pokes Viktor in the ribs, which makes him jerk away. Oh, is he ticklish there? He’ll have to file that information away for later. “I wish I knew how to play something. Anything. You make it look so easy.”

“It’s alright. You saw me humiliate myself in front of you at the skating rink, right? It’s only fair.”

“You weren’t that bad.”

“He says, to spare my feelings.” The teasing, light-hearted tone gives Yuuri vivid flashbacks of their first date at the coffee shop. How long has it been since that day? It feels at once like so much time, and no time at all, has passed. “Come on, give me your hand. I want to try something.”

Wary, Yuuri offers his right hand. Viktor clasps it and intertwines their fingers before placing their joined hands down onto the space between their legs. He then reaches across to grab his Yuuri’s left hand, and this is the one that he actually brings to the keys. “Here, like this…”

He guides Yuuri to the middle of a cluster of three black keys. With his hand hovering above Yuuri’s, Viktor presses one of his fingers down, depressing that key. A clear, rich tone fills the air, once. Twice. Again.

“You count four of this, and then…” He takes Yuuri’s hand again and jumps a full step, to the next black key on the right side of the cluster. The sound that follows comes out just a little bit higher. “Then press these two, but hold this one down, and count four of this other one.” Two white keys this time, another full step up and… is that two and a half, for the note that he sustains? He doesn’t quite figure it out in time, because after four beats Viktor is moving his hand again. “Then go back to a half-step below the first note, count four… and then come back and do it all again. Do you want to try?”

“Uhhh… I’ll do my best.”

Yuuri barely remembers the sequence, but he manages, somehow. _One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four._ Every time he moves his hands, he fights back a wince when he hits the new key, afraid that he’s picked the wrong one and that the sound that follows won’t match what he has in mind, what _Viktor_ has in mind. Luckily, that never happens. He makes it to the end without messing up, which draws out a sigh of relief. And because Viktor never told him to stop, he simply starts the cycle again, and it’s easier this time. The more he repeats it, the easier it gets.

“Good, try to keep that pace.” Viktor pulls up a metronome app on his phone, and places it somewhere off to the side. “Just like that, okay? Don’t stop.”

When Yuuri starts the next cycle, [ Viktor joins him](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsvCEE4tNaY).

This surprises Yuuri, though not enough to throw him off-rhythm. Viktor gives Yuuri’s right hand an encouraging squeeze as his own fingers fly over the higher keys. It takes a couple of measures for it to sink in: that the simpler, repeated notes Viktor taught him are meant to be an accompaniment. The melody is an entreaty, with its light, pretty notes that climb up and retreat, up and retreat, like it’s calling out for someone -- or maybe, is it searching for something? Viktor’s hand drifts closer after the first few beats, and then closer still, until his thumb just brushes up against Yuuri’s hand, before pulling away.

It’s about this time that Yuuri starts to wonder: why does it feel like he knows this song?

He plays for a few more beats, just finishing another round of the cycle when Viktor finally releases his other hand, reaches over, and grabs hold of Yuuri’s left one before he can start again. Two notes and a pause, far away, lend a high, graceful end to the introduction, and because Yuuri’s mind has been wired a certain way, he can’t help but to liken it to a jump.

Then Viktor slides his left hand beneath Yuuri’s left hand, coaxing his palm up, aligning his fingers under Yuuri’s. He brings both of their hands down, and the melody picks up again.

It’s surreal, sitting here where Viktor must have sat thousands of times before, in front of these keys he must have mapped and touched thousands of times more, ‘playing’ this piece with him. Yuuri watches and listens, transfixed, as Viktor carries his left hand across the keys, supporting him through more daring leaps and chords that Yuuri would never be able to remember in such a short span of time.

He's always held so much admiration for what Viktor does. But sitting here, so very close to the keys, feeling, hearing the music stream from beneath his own fingers, even if it's just an illusion -- it's only now that it really dawns on him, the exactness demanded by his craft. Just like leaning a couple of inches too far will throw off a landing, or daring to move his arms a second too early will derail a spin… here, just a single finger slightly misplaced could ruin the melody, and a jerk of the hand would dissolve the rhythm. None of that happens now, because Viktor plays with a precision that borders on surgical… and yet, he makes it sound so effortless.

Yuuri pulls back his hand when it gets too fast, and it starts to feel like he’s holding them back. Viktor takes over and plays for a few more bars, and Yuuri can only sit back and watch, stunned, the entire time.

Until it's over all of a sudden, and it feels like it shouldn't be. “That’s -- ”

“Unfinished, I know.” Viktor chuckles. “I’ve developed this terrible habit of playing pieces for you before I can complete them, it seems. I hope you’re not annoyed by it.”

He shakes his head. “That piece… the melody, it’s…”

“Familiar?” Yuuri nods at that, thankful because it means he hasn’t gone insane. “It’s your song, Yuuri. It’s you. What was your request again, at the time? Your life and your career, distilled into music that one could skate to.”

He hears those words in Ketty’s voice, sweet and clear like a bell. He still remembers the most random things from that first meeting with her, from the bottle of hand cream she kept in her purse, to the piles of notes and sheet music stuffed into her French workbook, to the Uno and Jenga sets in a small basket in the middle of their table. “You really got in touch with her, then.”

“I told you I would, didn’t I?” Viktor looks entirely too pleased with himself when he says this. “It’s a collaborative effort at this point, and we’ve been working on and off with it. I know it’s far too late for this season, but… would you still skate to it? Once it’s finished?”

Yuuri remembers that first conversation, long ago, the first time he told anyone that he dreamed of one day skating to a piece of music just for him, something close to and borne of his heart. He recalls how it sounded then, and how it sounds now, that melody which was always so beautiful… but now, Viktor’s gone and turned it into something positively magical.

Is… is this how Viktor sees him?

“Ah, you don’t have to commit to anything right now, of course.” Viktor waves his hands in a placating manner, likely interpreting Yuuri’s silence to mean something else. “I didn’t mean to spring this on you without any warning. I should have probably involved you more with the process from the start -- ”

“Am I imposing too much on you?”

Viktor blinks. “What?”

“I want to know if I’m -- if I’m imposing too much.” He ends up simply repeating the same words, useless. _Useless._ “You’ve already done so much for me, and I haven’t -- I can’t -- you won’t even let me pay you!”  

“I told you, you can pay me when you’ve won something,” Viktor reminds him. “Those were my terms. Everything I composed and arranged for you was to help you win. Until it happens, well, then I haven’t quite provided the service that I intended, have I?”

He doesn’t get it. Yuuri winning or not isn’t on him; it’s on _Yuuri_ , and at least one of them knows that quite well. One of them has been having to deal with this harsh reality for the past seventeen years.

“But I understand if it’s too much.” Viktor pulls back a bit, and forces a sad little smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have the best role models growing up. And even with my own experiences, I don’t think I’ve ever quite gotten this right. So I don’t know…” His voice dies down, grows quiet. “You’ll tell me though, won’t you? If it’s too much, if I’m suffocating you?”

Is he?

He’s not. Yuuri turns it over in his head, but no matter which way he looks at it, it’s not Viktor that’s the problem.

“I’ve never done this before,” he finally says. “I told you this, I think. And I’m so happy that you’ve opened yourself up to me, that you’ve let me in. I don’t take that for granted.”

“But?” Viktor presses.

Yuuri takes a deep breath. “But I worry. A lot. I worry that I’m not doing enough for you, or that I’m doing everything all wrong, and I can’t compare to -- to the men you loved in the past.” Wow, that kind of hurt to say. Maybe that’s how he knows that it’s true. “You make me happy… so, so happy. But there’s a part of me that’s thinking, ‘this is too good to be true’. Or that I’ll screw it up one day, somehow, for sure, and I -- ”

He’s been so busy trying to control the torrent of words that he didn’t notice Viktor tugging him closer by the front of his shirt, not until they’re already kissing, and the rest of that torrent is immediately lost in a sigh. Yuuri lets his eyes sink closed, and his hands blindly find Viktor’s shoulders somehow, of their own accord.

Just like this -- just like always -- Viktor manages to quell the storm in his head.

“You make me happy too,” Viktor whispers after they pull apart. He presses their foreheads together and slowly opens his eyes. “Better?”

Yuuri nods. His lips are still tingling, and he brings a finger to them when Viktor eventually turns back to the piano and starts playing again: [slow, soft strains ](https://youtu.be/r5FNJdktwz8?t=23) that leave Yuuri unsure if he’s taking them back to jazz or not.

Unsure, that is, until Viktor starts to sing.

 _“It's not the pale moon that excites me_  
_That thrills and delights me_ _  
Oh no, it's just the nearness of you…”_

Yuuri wants to rest his head on Viktor’s shoulder again, as though he’s decided in the past hour that that’s its new ‘home’. He’s lost count of how many times Viktor has sung in front of him by now. It’s mostly at the bar, when he’s performing as Vice, and Yuuri has to split his attention with all of the other patrons listening. Sometimes, when they’re out for dinner or drinks with the rest of the band, Georgi or Mila will break into song at the drop of a hat, and Viktor will join along. But there’s something special about Viktor singing like this, dressed down in old jeans and a T-shirt with a negative of Oscar Peterson at the keys printed on the front, his voice not quite conditioned from the usual drills he and Georgi run through before a performance.

It feels more… intimate, somehow?

It feels intimate, and his lips are still tingling. And that’s why Yuuri rests his chin on Viktor’s shoulder instead, so his lips can find and graze against the pianist’s cheek.

 _“It isn't your sweet conversation_  
_That brings this sensation_  
_Oh no, it's just the nearness of you…”_

Yuuri wraps his arms around Viktor’s waist, taking care to keep his arms more or less free. The song is beautiful, it really is; he’s listening to the lyrics as they fall from Viktor’s lips, and they make his heart swell. But it only adds fuel to the fire -- Viktor started something, with that kiss, and Yuuri returns the favor by pressing one against the side of his neck, the same way Viktor has done to him before.

Viktor hisses, and falters on the keys with a jarring sound, before recovering smoothly. “Yuuri -- ”

“Do you want me to stop?” Yuuri murmurs. “I will, if you tell me to.”

He doesn’t. “What do you want me to do? Ah… should _I_ stop this?”

“No,” Yuuri whispers right into his ear. “Keep going. Keep singing.”

Viktor shivers, and manages a nod.

 _“When you're in my arms_ _  
_ _And I feel you so close to me…”_

Seeing Viktor visibly affected by his ministrations emboldens him. Pushing away all the remnants of shyness and insecurity that still insist on lingering in the fringes of his mind, even at a time like this, he thinks back on the things Viktor has done to him that felt good in the past. Yuuri nibbles at his earlobe before swallowing back his inhibitions, and tracing the shell of his ear with the tip of his tongue.

_“All my wildest dreams come true…“_

The shaky, breathless quality of Viktor’s voice at the end of that line thrills him, and sends a rush of blood and warmth somewhere promising. _You’re so beautiful_ , he wants to whisper again and again into the landscape of Viktor’s skin, forever. He contents himself with sliding his hands under Viktor’s shirt, exploring the plane of his stomach, trailing higher, relishing the soft gasp that delays the next line of the song.

 _“I -- I need no soft lights… to enchant me…_  
_If you’ll only grant me_ _  
The right… to hold you ever so tight…”_

Viktor said it himself: he needs to _‘not-think’_ for awhile, right? Yuuri can give him that. Tonight, he can be the one that quells the monsters in Viktor's mind. And Yuuri would lay the world at his feet if he could.

 _“And to feel in the night...._ _  
_ _The nearness of you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music featured in this chapter:  
> \- Rach 3 again, [but just the cadenza](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhj7hunyVjw) \-- performed by Yefim Bronfman  
> \- I Want To Talk About You: [ this version](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNcRqKP-N9c) is gorgeous, and would be the closest to how Viktor would have sounded like (by Ryo Fukui -- whose work I have been hunting for on vinyl _forever_ ) | here’s a version [with the lyrics](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlxadNp8nlI) by Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass  
> \- [_“It’s your song Yuuri. It’s you.”_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsvCEE4tNaY) I’ve linked to the Synesthesia video of a solo piano arrangement this time, mostly because it makes the finger placements (heh) clear. It’s probably not a spoiler to say this isn’t the last time we’ll be seeing/hearing this piece in this fic.  
>  \- The Nearness Of You: [here’s a version by Tony DeSare](https://youtu.be/r5FNJdktwz8?t=23), which is pretty close in terms of pace / singing to what I had in mind for Viktor at the end of this chapter | and here’s a version [with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhaCNIpAnPs) that’s also gorgeous. Guys, I am absolutely weak for this song -- seriously, play/sing/play-and-sing this for me, I’m yours. Ffffffff I love it so, so much, it’s crazy.
> 
> Random stuff: Viktor’s little quote about bells is from Edgar Allan Poe’s _[The Bells](http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/bells)_.  
>  Random stuff (part 2): Did you guys know that Conservatory Girl from ep. 4 has a canon name? I did not. Evidently, [her name is Ketty Abelashvili](http://yurionice.wikia.com/wiki/Ketty_Abelashvili). I’ve gone ahead and ninja-edited a couple of sentences in chapters 4 and 8 to reflect this.  
> Random stuff (part 3): Regrettably, I could not find a version of In the Mood (featured in the last chapter) that (i) was sexy enough, (ii) was at the right tempo, (iii) was voiced by a crooner of the likes of Sinatra or even Buble, and (iv) had the right lyrics, to use for Chris’ short program music. [Here’s a version by Bette Midler](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phdO4N3EKpQ) to give you a feel of how the song sounds with words in it. Also, there are multiple versions of the lyrics, so for those interested, here are the lyrics up to the chorus in Chris’ chosen version:
> 
> Who's the lovin' daddy with the beautiful eyes  
> What a pair o' shoes, I'd like to try 'em for size  
> I'll just tell him, "Baby, won't you swing it with me"  
> Hope he tells me maybe, what a wing it will be  
> So, I said politely "Darlin' may I intrude"  
> He said "Don't keep me waitin' when I'm in the mood"
> 
> First I held him lightly and we started to dance  
> Then I held him tightly what a dreamy romance  
> And I said "Hey, baby, it's a quarter to three  
> There's a mess of moonlight, won't-cha share it with me"  
> "Well" he answered "Baby, don't-cha know that it's rude  
> To keep my two lips waitin' when they're in the mood"
> 
> In the mood, that's what he told me  
> In the mood, and when he told me  
> In the mood, my heart was skippin'  
> It didn't take me long to say "I'm in the mood now"
> 
> Once again, I’m so, so sorry for the delay. This chapter probably feels short, coming off of chapter 8’s 20k glory, but it was actually supposed to be shorter than this but… grew, somehow. Sorry if it maybe feels like nothing much happened ^_^;; And as always, thank you so much to everyone who’s been supporting this fic so far. You all give me life.
> 
> (Next chapter: Yuuri goes home to start his comeback. Absence makes the heart grow ___[adjective]___.)


	10. Kiss Me Sweet

The costume-selection process is a complicated one, and in the past years, it involved everything from poring over fashion catalogs, to trading mock-runway poses with Phichit, to staring at patches upon patches of fabric that all started to look the same after an hour or two. Yuuri goes through all of that again, in addition to a new element unique and new to this year: ransacking Viktor’s closet on a random Wednesday evening.

“You know, if you tell me what exactly you’re looking for, maybe I’ll be able to help?”

“That’s exactly it, I _don’t_ know.” He has exactly twelve hours to go before the ‘point of no return’ after which, if he hasn’t sent any concrete ideas by then, Celestino claims carte blanche to start sourcing out ideas for costumes for Yuuri Katsuki, from people _not_ named Yuuri Katsuki. He stops rifling through a series of white dress shirts long enough to poke his head out of the closet. “Wait, is this rude? Sorry, this is rude, isn’t it?”

Viktor shakes his head. “I did tell you that you could help yourself.” The sip he takes from his mug of tea hides everything from the nose down, but his eyes are clearly laughing. “That said, I’m not sure there’s anything there that will, ah, fit you.”

“I’m just looking for ideas,” Yuuri says. “I need to put a few things together to show to my coach and choreographer. I’ve got the most basic stuff, but I don’t have any of these.” He pulls down a collapsible garment box filled with scarves, and a matching box that holds an assortment of suspenders. “Or those,” he adds, pointing to the row of hats sitting on the topmost shelf in the closet. “And I have a grand total of _one_ tie to my name, not…” He trails off as he counts out the contents of the crowded tie rack that swings down from the side of the closet wall. “Thirty-five. Oh my God.”

“Ah, you mean that baby blue thing you wore to the bar that one time?” The smile on Viktor’s face turns strained. “Let’s get you some better ties someday, okay?”

He has some semblance of a possible costume idea forming in his head while they do the dishes after dinner. Mostly it’s because he manages to steal a glance at the outfit Viktor plans to wear to work tonight, which he’s laid out across the bed, and thinks _that looks nice_. Obviously this leads to Viktor asking about his Free Skate costume, which Yuuri hasn’t even started thinking about.

That’s not even the worst of his issues with that program, though. Even after having fully choreographed it from end to end, with a Spartan step sequence courtesy of Minako-sensei’s input, and an aggressive jump arrangement he spent countless hours negotiating with Celestino over, he still feels like he’s not quite there yet. He feels like there’s something missing, but he has no idea what it is, or if it even has a name.

He doesn’t tell Viktor any of that, though. And besides, there are some upsides to these qualifiers being structured the way they are. No Exhibition Skate means he at least doesn’t have to worry about yet another costume and program just yet. And at least the Short Program and Free Skate are going to be on consecutive days, unlike the Grand Prix events which would sometimes have an extra day to burn in between.

Viktor hums, taking the already-clean plate that Yuuri’s just been running under the tap for the past thirty seconds or so. “Is that really so bad?”

“I mean, it’s an extra day for me to get stuck in my head. Bad things tend to happen when I do. At last year’s Final…” Just calling that event to mind is enough to bring back the feeling of trying to fight down the steadily-growing anxiety of the day before the Free Skate, and _oh God all his jumps_ \-- even now, the memory of each fall causes him to suffer a mild panic, until he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “W-will you come with me to my Grand Prix events this year?!”

Viktor stops, his face a mix of confusion and surprise.

“I, uh, I don’t expect you to come to my other competitions,” Yuuri stammers. “Four Continents and Worlds are both going to be in Asia this year, and that’s… pretty far, I guess.” He wouldn’t dream of imposing that kind of financial burden on Viktor, and he can’t exactly afford it himself either. It’s the same reason he’s not asking Viktor to come for his Qualifiers. “But, for the events that are closer to home…”

When he trails off, Viktor dries his hands and reaches over to turn off the faucet.

“Would it help? Would you want me to distract you,” he leans in closer, letting his voice drop to a murmur, his lips an inch away from Yuuri’s cheek, “the same way you distracted me last week?”

Yuuri remembers that. He flushes, because he also remembers what came _after_ that, the moment the song ended and Viktor couldn’t seem to tear his hands away from the piano fast enough. As great as that experience was, and as eager as he is to repeat it sometime, it’s not what he needs tonight. “I… just really want you to be there. If you want to come.”

Viktor chuckles softly, and pulls him into a hug. Yuuri wraps his arms around Viktor’s waist, counting seconds in his head as the warmth calms him down, bit by bit. Until he’s no longer thinking of failed jumps and panic attacks, but of Viktor: the beat of his heart and the scent of his aftershave, and the tips of his hair tickling the side of Yuuri’s face.

“Skate America,” he finally says. “That’s in November, right? I’ll be there.”

Yuuri lets out a breath. “Thanks.”

“And the Final… where is it again?”

“Barcelona.”

“Then I’ll be there too.”

He sounds so sure of that that Yuuri wishes, for not the first time, that he had half as much confidence in himself as Viktor seems to have in him. “If I make it,” Yuuri mumbles.

“ _When_ you make it,” Viktor corrects him.

In the end, they don’t even speak of the Rostelecom Cup at all. But Yuuri understands, so he doesn’t bring it up.

 

* * *

  

Ten minutes before the expected arrival time for the Uber that’s supposed to take him to the airport, Yuuri is pretty positive that he’s going to scare Viktor away this time for good, as he tears apart his and Phichit’s dorm room in a rush of last-minute packing.

“Okay, so if you were me, what would you have forgotten to bring?”

Phichit’s at the dance studio with his choreographer all day, so Viktor is free to marvel at the chubby hamsters in their cage on his side of the room. Makkachin’s trying to ‘dig’ through the floor in the corner near the closet. “We’ve had this conversation so many times already,” Viktor laughs. “You’ll be fine.”

Yuuri’s throat makes a vague, wordless sound.

“Besides, you’ll be visiting your family first, right? If you forgot anything then, just get it from there.”

“I guess.” He’s going to be in Japan for a little over two weeks, because it would be a mortal sin _not_ to visit home if he’s going to be in the country for the regional Qualifiers anyway. His schedule didn’t exactly align with Celestino’s, so he’ll be flying there a week before his coach does, and staying a couple days longer after the competition. He imagines he won’t be doing much else besides skating and training anyway, but he should probably be able to squeeze in some quality time with his family in there. Somehow.

“Are you excited?” Viktor taps a finger against the bars of the cage. He’s got the fattest hamster, the one with golden fur, staring at him curiously. “It’s been a long time since you last visited home, right?”

“Five years,” Yuuri murmurs. “Almost six.”

“Wow. That’s quite a long time.”

“Haven’t _you_ been away from home even longer?”

…Shit. Shit. Yuuri freezes in his attempt to stuff an entire sweater into a side pocket and tries to gauge Viktor’s reaction, cursing his stupid brain-to-mouth filter.

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Viktor shrugs. “Well, you aren’t wrong.”

“It’s in my head. I’m sorry. I get like this when I get nervous, even though I really shouldn’t be by now.” Yuuri sighs. “It’s not an excuse. I don’t know…”

“Hey, come here.” Viktor beckons for him to come closer, and for a moment Yuuri thinks -- hopes -- that he might kiss him. But Viktor just places his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders, and looks him square in the eye. “You’ve been training and practicing like a madman over these past few weeks. Yes?”

“Uh… yes?”

“To the point that you could skate both of your programs at the drop of a hat, at gunpoint, if you had to. Yes?”

Why does his brain conjure up an image of Yuri Plisetsky holding the gun? “I guess.”

“You’ve worked so hard, Yuuri. And you’re a phenomenally talented skater. Everyone knows it, except you it seems.” Viktor offers him a soft smile, and leans in for a peck on the cheek. “For luck,” he whispers into his ear. “Now, you should have everything you need.”

“It’ll take more than a kiss on the cheek for that,” Yuuri mumbles. His face burning, he pulls Viktor in for a proper kiss before he loses his nerve.

When he gets the alert that his Uber has arrived, and as Viktor tries to coax Makkachin out of the new lair she’s designated for herself at the foot of Yuuri’s bed, Yuuri has one final, brief moment of unsurety. At the very last second, behind Viktor’s back, he takes out a few items from the very back of his half of the closet -- _an insurance policy_ , he tells himself -- and stuffs it into his carry-on bag.

 

* * *

 

He remembers reading somewhere that smell, of all things, is the sense most intimately tied to memory. That sounds about right, he thinks as he exits the platform to the main concourse of the train station, takes a deep breath, and knows immediately that he’s home.

A first glance might have actually fooled him, though. Motorized walkways, escalators where there used to be only stairs, monitors mounted from the ceiling every few meters or so, displaying everything from weather to the news… everything looks different. This old station even has elevated tracks now, he notes with a passing glance. Who’d have thought?

Then again, five years is five years, he reminds himself. All of a sudden, a part of him wishes that Celestino were here, or that he would have chosen to wait to fly to Japan with his coach instead of coming earlier. It should feel stranger than it does, that he now considers Celestino as something familiar to hold on to, like his comfort zone uprooted itself some time in the past and settled in Detroit, without him even having noticed. _Five years is five years._ He feels the time, the distance, keenly.

He turns a corner with a sigh. He looks up, a beat passes, and he suddenly forgets all about Detroit and whatever the opposite of homesickness is. “Wh-what?!”

 _Posters_ : dozens of them line the wall he’s facing from end to end, and if that weren’t enough, shrunken versions of the same image flap from streamers strung along the length of the concourse. There must be a hundred copies in his field of view alone: of himself, skating with his arm outstretched, Hasetsu Castle and cherry blossoms in the background.

_We’re Rooting For You!!! Hasetsu Native Figure Skater Katsuki Yuuri!_

Oh God.

“Yu~uri!”

The voice cuts through him with all the precision of a scalpel, but absolutely none of its subtlety. He flails.

“Why are you skulking around??”

He can think of a few reasons. Actually, he could think of a hundred. “M-Minako-sensei?”

There she is, in the flesh, looking no different from when he last saw her in person five years ago. She launches herself into a perfect twirl, before raising her leg impossibly high and unfurling a homemade banner. Oh dear God. “Finally, after five long years, welcome home!!”

Yuuri approaches her gingerly, like he’s not quite sure she’s for real. There’s a chance of that, right? That this is all a hallucination, and he’ll wake up back on the plane as it’s preparing to land, and then he won’t be greeted by the sight of his face plastered a hundred times over the station walls? “W-what are you doing here?”

“Hey! Stand up straight, will you?!”

He wasn’t expecting Minako-sensei to pick him up from the station. He wasn’t expecting _anyone_ to be here at all, but apparently this is a special occasion, because it’s the longest he’s ever been away from home, and he needs a proper welcoming party for his ‘grand comeback’. That certainly seems to be the phrase of the hour; it’s among the first ten words out of Takeshi’s mouth once he gets Yuuri into a headlock, and the triplets have scrawled the same in bright colors all over their homemade banner. Yuuko, flashing him a smile that makes five years seem like the blink of an eye, simply tells him, “Welcome home.”

Yuuri smiles back. “ _Tadaima._ ”

He has to wait a few more hours before he can actually go home, because Minako-sensei drags him around to meet and greet various townspeople, with the entirety of the Nishigori family tagging along. By the time they get to the _onsen_ \-- through the front door, because Minako-sensei’s entrances have never been inspired by the concept of subtlety -- it’s already dark outside, and Yuuri is ready to be one with his bed.

“Do you want some _katsudon?_ ” his mother asks with a huge, beaming smile.

“Ah, um.” He does now, but… “I haven’t won anything yet.”

She waves away all of his protests and disappears into the kitchen. When everyone else leaves, he goes for a long-overdue soak in the _onsen_ , and finally starts to feel like himself again.

He spends a week reacquainting himself with a city that feels at once familiar, yet so alien to him. Between ballet at Minako-sensei’s studio and off-ice conditioning at the gym with Takeshi yelling in his ear, there isn’t much time to be idle. But Hasetsu is several orders of magnitude quieter than Detroit, and it’s easier to get lost in his thoughts as he runs along the beach at night, or skates endless figures at Ice Castle.

Celestino flies in at the end of the week, fresh from a family wedding and ready to put Yuuri back through the wringer in the remaining days leading up to his Qualifiers. Suddenly his days at Ice Castle become a lot longer, and because Celestino rents a proper guest room in their house for his stay, dinner is spent poring over choreography notes and training videos: what went wrong today, what went well, and so on.

Nights in Japan are mornings in Detroit, and his days start to wrap up usually at around the time Viktor gets back home from a night’s work at the bar. Every night, they catch up and take turns unloading to each other about their day. Celestino and Minako-sensei were arguing about part of his Free Skate, for example, and Yuuri’s afraid of getting involved because it would mean telling them that he wants to go with _neither_ of their ideas. Viktor comes back with how today, one of the patrons got completely smashed on too much scotch -- not in the fun way like Yuuri was the night they met, he makes sure to say -- and so they actually had to kick him out of the bar. Yuuri laughs, which is a mistake, because his side hurts from a fall that happened while practicing his quad flip.

Finally, the day before the Qualifiers comes, and Yuuri’s an absolute mess. He’s tired, he’s nervous, and he’s trying desperately to be neither of those things, because who has time for that when he’s going to be skating for the first time since his last disaster of a season, and at a home rink no less? Minako-sensei and Takeshi are going to be in the audience, and everyone else will be watching on TV back home; God, they might even play it in the main room of the _onsen!_

 _Breathe_ , Viktor reminds him when he forgets.

“Thank you,” Yuuri murmurs when he finally manages to calm down. “That helped.”

 _“I’m glad.”_ Viktor’s voice is warm, and Yuuri feels that warmth somehow, even though he knows it’s coming from thousands of miles away. _“You’ll do great tomorrow, and the next day. Don’t let the nerves get to you. You’ve got this.”_

“I say that to myself every year.” He sighs. “I guess I’m not very convincing.”

Viktor lets out a thoughtful hum. Unlike Phichit, he’s not really a Facetime kind of person, preferring phone calls like this instead. _“When I was competing, sometimes it helped to think about what I wanted to do after the competition was over. Try to imagine how good you’ll feel two days from now, and all the fun things you can do before you fly back to Detroit.”_

Yuuri thinks about that. What _would_ he do? He would probably request _katsudon_ again, and spend some much-needed time relaxing with his family. Maybe he’ll take a day trip to the beach with the Nishigori family if they have time. But he’s also looking forward to being back in Detroit, curled up against Makkachin on Viktor’s couch, sated and lazy from too much pizza, listening as Viktor practices concertos and jazz improv on the piano. “I’ll give that a try, I guess. Thank you.”

_“Always happy to help.”_

There’s a pause, and then some rustling of paper on the other end of the line. Yuuri hasn’t said anything, but he’s noticed a lot more background noise on this call than usual. It doesn’t sound like Viktor’s outdoors; there’s no roar of wind or any of the sounds he associates with traffic. But if he strains his ears, he can just make out the low din of unfamiliar voices, though he can never make out what they’re saying. “Everything okay over there?”

 _“Yeah…”_ Viktor seems to hedge for a bit, but he continues before Yuuri can ask again. _“Listen, I would have wanted to tell you this sooner, but it kind of only got finalized today: I’m going to be travelling for work over the next couple of weeks. Just letting you know because there might be some instances where I’ll be slow to reply. And I won’t be back in Detroit until after you are.”_

“Oh. Thanks for the heads-up.” He feels a bit bad now, realizing that he probably hasn’t been asking about Viktor, and how _he’s_ doing, as much as he should during these calls. He’ll just have to start remedying that now, then. “Flying?”

 _“God, no.”_ Viktor laughs. _“It’s just a couple of cities over, so I’m driving.”_

That’s not too bad then, Yuuri thinks to himself. Idly, he wonders if Viktor is usually the designated driver whenever the band hits the road, or if he volunteered for this. Or maybe they rotate? It’s not something that’s ever come up in conversation before, now that he thinks about it.

He’s only thinking about this because there’s something else that he _doesn’t_ want to think about, looming. But he can’t even fool himself.

_“Good luck on your Qualifiers. I really wish that I could see you perform live.”_

As it turns out, he can’t fool Viktor either. “It’s fine,” Yuuri assures him. “You won’t be missing much, honest. They’re holding it at a small venue, and the commentary will all be in Japanese.”

_“Please. You know I wouldn’t be there for the commentary.”_

Yuuri smiles. He wonders if he imagines it, or if his cheeks really did warm up just a little bit in that moment. It’s unfair, that even from so far away, Viktor can still have this effect on him.

 _I miss you_ , he doesn’t say. It’s harder than he thought it would be, being apart like this. Even though there were plenty of days in which he and Viktor didn’t physically see each other back in Detroit, simply knowing that he was a bus ride and a quick jog away made all the difference.

_“So I figure it’s probably late where you are. You should get some sleep.”_

But that would mean ending this conversation. “Aren’t you going to offer to sing me a lullaby?”

He can hear the grin in Viktor’s voice when he comes back with, _“Of Birdland?”_ He laughs as Yuuri groans. _“Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near a piano right now.”_

“Oh. Right.”

_“I know. It’s a travesty, isn’t it? Wait a bit.”_

Yuuri listens through some shuffling, and a few words murmured to someone else that he doesn’t quite catch. He hears footsteps, tapping out a brisk but unhurried pace, and halfway through they get louder -- a change of flooring, maybe? Every so often he hears voices, different ones each time, rising and peaking and fading out, never loud enough for him to actually make out words. Finally, he he hears a couple of quick beeps, and then a bang, before the line suddenly becomes very quiet.

Was that… a car door? “Still here,” he reminds him.

_“Ahh, right, right, sorry for the wait.”_

“Are you in a car?”

_“Mm-hmmm. You’ll have to bear with me. This is kind of at the drop of a hat, and these acoustics -- I might sound legitimately terrible.”_

“You?” Yuuri laughs. “Never.”

 _“Flatterer.”_ And then, because Viktor has never been one to indulge in fancy introductions for times like this, he just starts [singing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oWbzT_oAJ0) without any further preamble. _“I love you… for sentimental reasons…”_

“Wow,” Yuuri says under his breath. He can’t stop the smile from forming on his face as he whispers, “You’re so cheesy.”

Viktor doesn’t dispute that, but Yuuri can hear him smiling too.

 _“I hope you do believe me_ _  
_ _I'll give you my heart…”_

This is one of those few jazz songs that Yuuri was already familiar with even before meeting Viktor, and one of those fewer still that _weren’t_ songs or pieces used by his competitors in skating programs in the past. It’s a classic, one of those ‘standards’ as he’s learned they’re called, and he recognizes the melody easily; he figures he must have heard it from his father’s record player or Celestino’s car, or some random store or restaurant more times than he can remember.

Still, there’s something special about the way Viktor sings it, like he’s hearing it for the very first time. Viktor seems to have that effect on any song that he sings for him, Yuuri realizes.

 _“I love you_  
_And you alone were meant for me_  
_Please give your loving heart to me_ _  
And say we'll never part…”_

Yuuri finally switches off the lamp on his bedside table, and crawls under the covers. When he closes his eyes, he hears a soft, rhythmic tapping in the background, and likes to imagine Viktor ‘playing’ the accompaniment against the top of the dashboard, or onto the steering wheel. The mental image makes him feel warmer than these layers of hotel sheets are doing right now, and he thinks: maybe, if he hadn’t completely messed up last season, he might have had a bye to Nationals at this point. And then he wouldn’t have to be _here_ , and he could be in the passenger’s seat of Viktor’s car instead, listening to him sing in person and not over speakerphone.

Then again, if he weren’t here, Viktor wouldn’t have to be singing him a lullaby right now. Maybe that’s something.

 _“I think of you every morning_  
_Dream of you every night_  
_Darling I'm never lonely_ _  
Whenever you're in sight…_

 _I love you for sentimental reasons_  
_I hope you do believe me_ _  
I've given you my heart.”_

When Yuuri opens his eyes again, he does so just enough to make out the buttons on his phone, so he can take himself off speaker mode and bring the phone to his ear. “Thank you,” he whispers, and means it. If there were any vestiges of the anxiety over tomorrow’s looming Qualifiers that had been building over the past few days, he can’t quite feel them now. Or, they’ve just been covered by something else, something far more pleasant and sweet. “Good night, Viktor.”

_“Good night, Yuuri.”_

 

* * *

  

Whatever magic Viktor cast over the phone didn’t last through the night, because Yuuri finds himself a tangled mess of nerves from the moment he wakes up the next morning, to when they finally pull up to Okayama International Skate Rink. ‘ _Let’s Send the Power of Sports Throughout Japan!’_ the banners hanging on the outside of the building read. _‘Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Figure Skating Championship.’_

A warm hand is clasped over his shoulder. “I have a good feeling about today, Yuuri,” Celestino tells him. “You’re going to do just fine.”

“Yeah! Today you’ll be kicking off your comeback!” And that’s Takeshi’s contribution, capped off by a too-hard slap on his other shoulder. “It’ll be a piece of cake!”

“Do your best, okay?” Minako-sensei sings. “Even if you’ll be competing against little kids!”

That’s how he learns that he’s the oldest of the four skating in the senior men’s singles division today. Okay, that’s awesome. Not that he didn’t really expect it -- as far as the age of competitors goes, he knows very well that he’s on the higher end of the distribution. It’s part of why retiring after this season makes a lot of sense in his mind.

He tries not to think about that too much as he’s called to choose his random number to determine where he’ll be in the skating order. _Anything but the first spot_ , he prays silently as he reaches into the bag. _Anything but the first spot…_

“Skater Katsuki Yuuri, you’re up first.”

Not again! Honestly, the universe must hate him. He can think of no other explanation for why he consistently has the most horrible luck of the draw.

“I can’t believe I got to see you draw the first spot in person again, Yuuri-kun!” a voice says from somewhere in his vicinity. “I love it!”

Yuuri turns to face him. He takes in the younger man’s wide, shining eyes, the flash of white from the tip of a pointed tooth sticking out from between his lips, and the swish of red in a shock of dirty blond hair. He draws a complete blank. “Um…”

“What, you don’t remember me??” His voice hikes up a full octave at what Yuuri thinks might have been offense, if they weren’t interrupted by the organizer on stage calling out for… “Yes, present! Minami Kenjirou here!”

Who is that again? He thinks he’s heard that name somewhere before. Yuuri watches him the whole time as he digs through the bag of numbers on stage. He’s one of the three other skaters in Yuuri’s event, that’s for sure. But aside from that…? The synapses in Yuuri’s brain try, but sadly fail, to make the connection.

Well, whoever he is, he draws fourth. Maybe the universe just likes him a lot.

 

* * *

 

_“Ladies and gentlemen, this event is the senior men’s short program…”_

As always, Celestino is giving him pointers until the very last second. “Don’t forget to make use of of that free leg coming around to help get the rotation going for your quad sal.”

“Mmm.” Yuuri fiddles with the buttons on his suspenders -- well actually, they’re _Viktor’s_ suspenders, and they’re silky and black and they catch the light as he moves, and they’re distracting him because _everything_ is distracting him right now. He’s nervous. Long ago, he thought this was one of those things that got better with experience, and with age. Christophe certainly looks calm as a cucumber whenever he takes to the ice. Yuuri’s psyche must have missed the memo, because here he is, seven full years older than the next-oldest competitor, nervous as all hell.

“Just skate it the way you did in practice.” When his name is called, Celestino gives him one last clap on the back, his ‘good luck’ send-off. “Show them how it’s done!”

It’s surreal, how it feels like he hasn’t skated in a proper competition since forever ago, even if he knows it’s been less than a year. As he glides slowly along the ice, he hears his name being shouted left and right. _‘Welcome back!’_ some of them are saying. Is he? Is he really? There’s a moment where he just stands there, realizing with growing horror that these people came in here with _expectations,_ and that a good number of them are anticipating some kind of glorious comeback, because who doesn’t love a narrative like that? What if he disappoints them?

Then the tinkling of [ piano keys, high and flirty](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDDYO8zYA8U), fills the rink, and Yuuri’s moving before he even realizes it.

He extends his arm out all the way, bending ever so slightly to sweep his leg into a circle. The satisfying scrape of his blade against the ice is a kind of music all its own, as Viktor’s piano echoes from the speakers in the ceiling. Stop. Turn. A measured roll of the hips, cocking his head back with a smirk as his barely-fuzzy vision allows him to imagine that Viktor is there in the audience, near the Kiss and Cry.  

Well, then. Here goes nothing.

The first verse is a series of steps, fast-paced and flashy like the piano itself, but secretly letting him build up speed for his first jump. Honestly, he would have preferred to have all of the jumps in the second half, because the bonus to his score would have been more than welcome, and he’s tried to convince Celestino multiple times that he has the stamina for it, _no really,_ he does. In the end, Celestino agreed to putting one jump and the jump combo in the second half, as a compromise.

It’s an arrangement Yuuri doesn’t mind too much, because this way he gets the quad salchow done at the end of the first verse… which, at this very moment, is about five seconds away. He’s already set up the three turn, and as he waits for the musical cue, he calls to mind a young, short-tempered Russian skater yelling at him: _“Don’t you dare bend your fucking free knee until the takeoff, piggy!”_

 _Noted_ , he thinks as pulls his arms in and jumps. One-two-three-four --

The landing is a dream, and when he sweeps out his free leg, it hits nothing but air. Yuuri’s eyes widen as the crowd goes wild. _Oh my God._ That actually worked!

Viktor’s hands crashing down for the refrain propel him into a flying sit spin. He doesn’t count it out in his head, but he doesn’t have to; he paces himself against the music, and he knows almost on a subconscious level how many measures to wait before changing to the other foot. And he knows when to break out of the spin so that by the time the second verse starts, he’s just about ready for the step sequence.

It’s perfect that this verse, which was almost entirely improvised on Viktor’s part, plays during the step sequence. It’s playful, like all of Viktor’s improvisations tend to be, and projects a sassy kind of confidence that’s unique to this piece alone, playing off of its charms. Yuuri isn’t sure he’s able to project all of that sass, but this is the best way he knows how to try, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try. Minako-sensei’s choreography helps, all turn and twist and twizzle, half of it coming to life from his hips. All he has to do is execute.

He wonders if it’s working; this lukewarm reception isn’t telling him much at all. Honestly, the random stragglers at the Detroit Skating Club were more enthusiastic than this.

No matter. If Viktor were here, would he have liked that sequence? Would he have considered it worthy of his music? Those are the questions that burn in Yuuri’s mind.

Another spin comes up, a camel spin with a change of foot. He holds it until he hears Leo’s section, frantic on the drums. And then he has a few seconds to build up momentum, to glide…

Into a triple axel -- and he lands this one too, coming down perfectly as the low notes boom, heralding the beginning of the end. The crowd laps it all up, and the rush of relief quickly turns into something much more decisive. He’s almost there. Just a little more!

He throws a wink at the judges’ table -- this was Phichit’s idea, not his own, but it was met with enthusiastic approval from both Celestino and Minako-sensei, so there it goes. It feels right, anyway, and the hoots and cheers from the row just behind the judges give him the extra boost as he takes off into his last jumps.

Quadruple toe loop, triple toe loop combo. The fact that it doesn’t end in a pop or a fall is the ultimate relief, but it’s the roar of the crowd, deafening even as he starts his final combination spin, that drives it home: here, in his first real return to competition after the disaster that was last year’s Nationals, he just nailed every single one of his jumps. Holy hell.

When it’s all over, Minako-sensei and Takeshi are on their feet, screaming -- hell, half of the audience is. Celestino is yelling in Italian, but it’s his happy kind of yelling; after five years, he and Phichit certainly know the difference.

Yuuri can’t stop smiling if his life depended on it. He takes a deep bow, just as it starts to rain sushi plushies onto the ice.

 

* * *

 

He still hasn’t quite come down from the high when he heads back to his hotel room after the event. He knows that his Free Skate is still rough around the edges; that’s what he gets from waffling on it so much, and for starting to piece together the program so late. Still, he’s built a comfortable lead with his Short Program earlier that day, over thirty points ahead of his next competitor, Minami Kenjirou, _whom he now actually remembers from last year’s Nationals debacle_. Tomorrow’s not going to be a perfect debut, he already knows, but he’s made peace with that. Who knows, maybe he’ll manage to come to some epiphany while he’s skating it live.

There’s another thing, too. His quad flip isn’t quite ready yet either. He’d love it, and he’s sure Japan would love it, if he could manage to land the first ratified quad flip here, at home. But his success rate in practice isn’t anything to brag about, and he’s being very generous with ‘success’ there, including all the jumps that come out wobbly, or that he saves at the very last second. Celestino’s vote was a hard ‘No’ to trying the flip live any time before the Grand Prix _Final_ , much less now. Minako-sensei and everyone else agreed too. But there’s a stubborn part of him that wants to do it anyway.

When he finally checks his phone, he sees congratulations from his parents and Mari, a picture from Yuuko of the triplets glued to the TV screen, captioned _‘Ganba!!’_ And… seven missed calls from Phichit?

 

 

> **Phichit**
> 
> _omg call me_
> 
> _YUURI_
> 
> _CALL ME?!?!_
> 
> _or ykw nvm_
> 
> _maybe im overreacting_
> 
> _still_
> 
> _plot twist of the CENTURY_

 

 

Yuuri frowns. Huh? 

 

 

> **Phichit**
> 
> _didn’t u say he knew other-yuri too?_
> 
> _dude ur bf knows so many skaters is2g in_ _  
> _ _another universe hed be one of us_
> 
> _one of us one of us_
> 
> _ONE OF US_

 

 

He has to scroll through several more screens of less-than-helpful messages before Phichit finally remembers to give him some context: something about Christophe, though he never really specifies what. Does Chris even have any events this early in the season?

No, it turns out, is the answer to that. But the top post on his Instagram, sitting with more likes than Yuuri would have even thought possible for a six-hour post, is a picture of Chris already in Chicago a month early, training on local ice for Skate America. And he’s got his arm slung around another man who’s sporting dark glasses and a newsboy cap, but Yuuri recognizes the line of his jaw, that silvery fringe, and that small but distinctly heart-shaped smile. 

 

 

> **christophe-gc** **  
> ** _Guess who i ran into today??! Reunited and it feels so good / it’s a small world after all!_

 

 

It takes a remarkably long time for Yuuri to even react at all. He understands each of the words by themselves, sure, and Christophe’s face is unmistakable; he’s seen that face at countless competitions and interviews, and from hours spent mindlessly scrolling through his Instagram feed in the past, like he’s doing right now. So he isn’t sure why it takes the curve of Viktor’s lips -- and an errant thought, _I’ve kissed those lips,_ a casual reminder -- for him to understand.

He understands.

And before he can help it, before he can even _think_ about it, there’s already something twisting, heavy, in the pit of his stomach.

He brings up the video Phichit showed him before, partly because he’s a glutton for punishment, but mostly because he needs to be sure. He supposes he should have already known; a ‘bartender in Canada’, wasn’t that what Chris said before? One that he spent the night with, and inspired much of what he’s doing this season? Viktor had never ascribed dates or years to the cities he stayed in when he told Yuuri his story, but the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense.

It’s possible.

Hell, he doesn’t even need any of this complicated analysis -- Chris said ‘reunited’, and it’s his Viktor right there in that photo, isn’t it?

Yuuri swallows. _His_ Viktor, huh?

He’s smart enough not to read through the comments; they probably all speculate about the same thing he’s trying so hard _not_ to think about right now. That leaves him staring at the picture, unblinking, as he takes in the comfortable loop of Chris’ arm around Viktor’s shoulder, the inviting jut of his hip, his brilliant smile. Chris has always been good at working the camera. He’s good at a lot of things, actually. Yuuri doesn’t know what all of those things are, but he’s a hell of a lot better at skating, that’s for sure.

To think that Viktor was able to inspire him… ah, but that makes sense, doesn’t it? He can’t help a small smile at that, but it tastes bitter in his mouth.

 _Of all the skaters in all the world,_ he finds himself thinking. He swallows again, feeling something that might or might not be déjà vu.

But… Viktor would have been aware that he and Chris know each other. Yuuri must have mentioned Chris’ name dozens of times by now, if only because the current Grand Prix gold medalist and World champion is bound to come up somewhere in the panicked drivel that Yuuri blurts out when he shows up at Viktor’s doorstep on bad days. Surely he would have said something about knowing him too, at least once. But he never did. Did he just forget?

Did he… did he do it on purpose?

A sudden rapping on his door makes him jump.

It’s strange -- it’s like he’s making his way through fog, like he’s not really aware of his legs moving as he gets up and walks to the door. It takes him several seconds too long to disengage the lock.

Takeshi greets him with a huge grin. Yuuri is only half paying attention, because he’s trying _not_ to think too much about anything, so maybe Takeshi has to repeat himself. What? Something about dinner, he’s saying. Dinner now. “Uh,” Yuuri manages, struggling to focus. “Who else is coming?”

“All of us. We’re all heading out, it isn’t too far. Your coach is already waiting in the lobby, ‘cause he thought you’d already be there.” Takeshi notices something from the look on Yuuri’s face that makes him frown. “Everything okay?”

No. No, it’s really not. Christophe knows Viktor, as it turns out, _knows_ him in what seems like a lot of ways, and this is… a problem. Isn’t it? Is it? It must be, because the pit in his stomach has not gone away, and it shifts every time he moves.

“Of course.” Yuuri forces a smile, and hopes it didn’t come out as crooked as it felt. “Everything’s okay.”

 

* * *

 

It’s a universal truth that the more you try _not_ to think about something, the more you do. Yuuri is hopelessly distracted throughout dinner, which doesn’t go unnoticed when everyone else sitting at the table has known him for at least five years. Yuuri has a grab bag of excuses as to why he’s quieter than he should be, because the real reason would be too complicated, and stupid, to explain. _Tired? Anxious about tomorrow’s Free Skate? Still jet lagged??_ Yes, it’s all of those, it’s none of those, it’s stupid. They accept his excuses easily, because they’re all so happy, because he just smashed his previous personal best and this is a _celebration_ , Yuuri! When he reminds them that he doesn’t drink before competitions, they nod sagely. Of course, of course. Then Takeshi makes a bet that he can drink Celestino under the table, and that becomes the new topic of discussion.

It gets worse once he’s back at the hotel. He spends countless minutes staring up at the ceiling in the dark, because that heavy, unsettling feeling never went away, it just sank further and spread and morphed into something that’s now gnawing on his insides, keeping him awake.

It doesn’t help that he hasn’t heard from Viktor since before his Short Program, which could either mean anything or nothing at all. Maybe he’s still on the road. Maybe he’s busy. Or maybe he thought that Yuuri would be asleep by this time. That would make two of them wrong tonight.

It was one picture. _One picture_. Fretting about this is so stupid, and the most frustrating thing is that he _knows_ it’s stupid. But he can’t quell the storms already raging inside his head.

Grabbing his phone from the side table, he opens up his messages with Viktor, and scrolls up blindly. Viktor is almost always the one to initiate their conversations, he notices now, at any given time. He never really gave much thought to it before, but in a way, it kind of makes sense. Viktor was the one who left a note in his pocket, Viktor was the one who agreed to be his musical consultant, and Viktor was the one who poured out the contents of his heart and soul, a story twenty-seven years running that he packed into a single night. The only times Yuuri ever reached out to him first were when he was either drunk or remorseful. What does that say about him?

And maybe he can end this, so very easily. _Just start the damn conversation._ There are a million and one ways. ‘Hey’. ‘How’s it going?’ ‘Guess what, today I learned Minako-sensei can outdrink both Celestino AND Takeshi.’ _Just send something. Anything._

But his thumbs mostly just hover over the text box. When he does start writing something, he makes it about halfway before tearing into the backspace key, hating himself with every passing second.

Why is this so hard? It shouldn’t be so hard. What the hell is wrong with him?!

Yuuri stares at the screen so long that it gives up on him, plunging the room into darkness.

What’s wrong with him… it’s the same as it’s always been, he supposes. And when he finally gives up, fighting back a treacherous burning in his eyes that he tells himself is _not_ what he thinks it is, he ends up silently begging Viktor to just call him. Or email, or send some silly picture of a typo on a takeout menu with zero captions, like he’s done so many times before. He knows very well that _this_ , too, is stupid, absolutely stupid. But he feels that if he somehow bites the bullet and starts that conversation, he’ll wind up asking _why are you in Chicago, why do you know Chris, why didn’t you tell me, why, why, why, why._

His phone stays dormant the whole night.

 

* * *

 

The day of the Free Skate starts with Yuuri submerging his head into a sink full of ice-cold water, hoping it would make up for not having slept a wink. It doesn’t work.

“Not even a little bit?” Celestino takes a look at him and mutters something in Italian. Yuuri doesn’t know what he just said, but he’s inclined to agree. “Let’s play it safe today, then. First of all, you’re absolutely _not_ going to be trying that quad flip.”

“Okay,” Yuuri whispers.

“And don’t practice any jumps during the warmup. You’re skating last, but you should save your strength for the actual program.”

“Okay.”

He only starts to really feel the fatigue a couple of hours later, as Minako-sensei is smoothing his hair back with gel and trying to keep him distracted with talk of Hasetsu: people are leaving in droves, she says, and she hardly has any students left anymore. But it looks like his comeback yesterday breathed some new life into this sad, struggling town, and isn’t that just a kick in the teeth.

“Just do your best out there today.” Minako-sensei finishes up with his hair and rests her hands on his shoulders. She smooths out the few creases on his costume, meets his eyes in the mirror, and gives him a warm smile. “You look so good in this. Very handsome.”

Yuuri doesn’t say anything back, but he manages a weak smile. This rich blue number, with gleaming golden cords holding the jacket closed in front, was mostly a product of Minako-sensei’s mind. _It makes you look like a prince!_ the triplets gushed in near-unison when they first saw him in this costume a few days ago. Yuuri stares at his reflection in the mirror, at the dark circles under his eyes that Minako-sensei will try to hide with makeup in a few minutes. He doesn’t feel anything remotely close to regal at all.

There’s a cloud hanging over him, stalking him as he makes his way across the ice during the six-minute warm-up. ‘Play it safe,’ Celestino said, as though that would make everything okay. What is that even supposed to mean? If it wasn’t enough that he _still_ has so many doubts about the program he’s about to skate publicly for the first time in the next half-hour, his head is stuffed full of thoughts of Viktor, and of Chris and Chicago and Chris’ jazzy Short Program, and _Viktor_.

Yuuri is so distracted that he forgets completely about Celestino’s earlier warning about jumps, and only remembers when he’s already pushed off of the ice. And the trouble with being mid-air is that you have very little control over where you go; by the time he sees the shock of red and gold, and realizes that he’s on a collision course with Minami, it’s already too late.

He pops the jump at the soonest possible second, and manages to avoid hitting Minami at all, if barely. But he fails to stick the landing, and goes down hard. Though his shoulder takes the brunt of the impact, his head still slams into the ice before it’s all over.

Yuuri doesn’t register the initial ripple of shock throughout the audience, but he does hear some of the organizers talking frantically in Japanese. Minami is screaming or crying out his name, he can’t tell which. The sound of skates -- probably the medics’ -- comes closer and closer. At that moment, he wants to curl into a ball, make himself as small as possible until he might disappear, but he can’t. He can’t. He hates this.

He hates himself.

 

* * *

 

“The good news is, it doesn’t look like there’s any serious damage…”

Yuuri winces from the penlight being shone into his eyes. It’s already too bright in this room, though it’s really less of a ‘room’ and more of just a cordoned-off area where Celestino dragged him to be evaluated by one of the medics on-site.

His head is pounding, and his shoulder is killing him even more. The head medic’s and Celestino’s voices are too loud; the lights overhead are too bright. The penlight shines into his eyes again, and he has to fight down a wave of nausea.

“What do you recommend?” Celestino asks.

“Well, everything seems clear.” He turns to Yuuri and finally clicks the penlight off. “You might have a bump on your head over the next few days, and maybe a nasty bruise on your shoulder. Other than that, you’re fine.”

He supposes that that is good news, but he’s not sure if it’s what he wanted to hear.

“What about the Free Skate?” Minako-sensei speaks in English for Celestino’s benefit. “Should he withdraw?”

“That’s up to him.”

Through the muffled speakers, he hears the announcer calling Minami Kenjirou to the ice. He doesn’t have long to decide.

He surveys everyone else who’s in the room, because he can’t think of anything else to do. Takeshi wants him to fight. Celestino wants to pull him out, arguing that given the circumstances -- and so long as he does decently at his Grand Prix events -- he should be able to get Yuuri a bye to the Four Continents easily.

Minako-sensei touches his hand. “What do you want to do, Yuuri?”

If only he had an easy answer to that. He _wants_ to skate, in the sense that he wants to finish this competition, and he wants to earn that spot at Nationals. He wants so badly to be able to live up to everyone’s expectations of his grand comeback, to show them that yes, yes, it was worth it to believe in him after all. He doesn’t want to waste their goodwill. But he’s a wreck, in more ways than one, and he just knows that if he tries to skate to _Stammi Vicino_ now -- a piece he was already struggling with, even before he got derailed by all _this_ \-- he’s only setting himself up to fail.

In that case… there’s one other thing he can do. He has one last gamble to make.

“I’ll need to change,” he finally says. “Can I have my bag, please?”

Celestino, Takeshi, and Minako-sensei all stare at him.

“My bag, please,” he says again, trying to stop his voice from shaking. “I really don’t have much time.”

They stare at each other.

When he pulls out a single disc in a worn case, wrapped up in a white turtleneck with blue flame-like designs, in turn wrapped in a flashy blue jacket -- the ‘insurance policy’, his Free Skate costume from last season -- Celestino understands. “Yuuri. They might not let you do this,” he warns him. “And if they do, you’re looking at a hefty deduction.”

“It’s okay,” Yuuri says. “It’s better than nothing. I’ll take it.”

As Celestino leaves to go talk to the organizers, Minako-sensei asks if he’s sure about this. But he doesn’t have the heart to lie.

 

* * *

 

It’s a long, painful battle to keep his mind empty when he glides to the center of the rink. It’s also one that he’s losing.

_No. Stop. Focus._

The words are useless, and smothered by all of the noises causing a ruckus in his head. The slow-building, tentative applause as his name is announced. The murmurings from the announcers’ table that he’s glad he can’t make sense of as he skates past. The sound of his blades against the ice, loud, somehow growing louder with every passing second.

The surface of the ice seems to expand in real time, the edges escaping from him, leaving him behind. Was it always this cold? Yuuri swallows, and the pain in his head throbs in response.

At the very last second, he thinks maybe Celestino was right. A no-show at Nationals this year isn’t much better than 11th place last year. Maybe he should have withdrawn after all. But then [ the music starts](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLhvMgucWns), and pulls him into a dance that, even with long months of atrophy and too many false starts and stops since then, his limbs and muscles somehow still remember after all this time.

As he skates, he can’t help but wonder if all that much has really changed since then, in the grand scheme of things. He remembers dimly that this time last year, he only really knew one quad jump, and Celestino didn’t trust him enough with it to put it in a combo. In fact, he’d arranged Yuuri’s jumps so that the single quad toe loop would come practically right out of the gate, at the end of the first verse. That was how he was with Yuuri’s programs: safe, practical, _get the risky stuff out of the way first so that you’re left with the stuff you’re comfortable with_. Not that it helped in Sochi, but last year’s Yuuri had appreciated his pragmatism.

Now, he’s not so sure. But he knows he’s screwed it up when he leaves the ice -- he takes off halfway through that prolonged, unresolved note before the violin retreats back to repeat the theme, and it’s too early, and just feels wrong. He two-foots the landing, hears the crowd’s reaction, and feels something start to sting in his eyes.

Yuuri keeps going, because there’s not much else he can do. There’s another jump coming up, after this closed mohawk that he didn’t even realize he was doing right now. It’s arguably his strongest jump, too. _Just a little more space, just a little more speed._ He moves almost on autopilot, trusting that whatever his ballet training had imbued into his limbs would be enough to carry him through. _Spread-eagle, here we go._

It’s not the worst triple axel in the world. But the landing leaves something to be desired, and his leg wobbles. He extends his arms to try to reclaim his balance, barely saves it, and only hopes that that maneuver somehow ended up looking remotely graceful.

Maybe Sochi wasn’t just a one-time blunder after all.

Maybe it was the beginning of the end.

_(“Shake it off.”)_

It’s salt on an open wound, to hear Viktor Nikiforov’s voice popping up in his head as Yuuri fights to salvage this program. Wasn’t it Viktor, and his own endless worrying about Viktor, that got him into this terrible headspace to begin with? Yuuri grits his teeth and wishes, for not the first time, that he’d never seen that damn Instagram post to begin with. That he’d never allowed Phichit’s barrage of texts to pique his curiosity, that he’d just given Minako-sensei his phone to lock in a box until these Qualifiers ended.

Oh, but those are all just secondary, aren’t they? Afterthoughts. If only he hadn’t grown so close -- if only he hadn’t cared too much, enough to be jealous and hurt and unable to help it despite a multitude of reasonable explanations -- then none of this would be an issue. Right?

If he ends up nailing the triple axel, single loop, and triple flip combo that follows, well, it might be at least partly out of spite. Still, finally, the crowd roars.  

_(“Wow!”)_

_Shut up_ , he wants to say as he launches himself into a spin.

But that’s telling, isn’t it? How often has Viktor cheered him up and cheered him on like this, over many a late-night practice session on his precious nights off? It must have been often enough, if Yuuri can hear his voice ringing so clearly over the music, the ice, and the sounds of the crowd.

He skates with purpose through his choreographic sequence, and through the next section as the music swells into something richer. It’s a struggle, all of it. How many minutes has it been? One? Less? It feels like it’s already been ten, and it seems like the ice never ends. He needs something to hold on to, when the pain in his head pulses, or when his shoulder screams in protest as he moves.

_(“You’ve got this.”)_

_No, I don’t._

_(“You’re doing so great.”)_

Triple lutz, triple loop. He stumbles at the end of the combo, the fingers of one hand grazing the ice before he can right himself.

So that’s how it is, then. For all that his feelings for Viktor have been a liability to him, kept him awake and distracted and anxious, so anxious… it’s still Viktor, on the other side of that same coin, that’s keeping him from falling apart right now. The soft whisper that’s a permanent undercurrent to his voice whenever he speaks, doubly so when he sings, and the way Yuuri just _knows_ if he’s smiling or pouting or scowling, or fighting not to cry, without having to look at him -- it’s all so clear and perfect in his mind.

Even when he’s so far away… even when the last thing Yuuri wants to do is keep thinking about him… he still manages to drown away all the noise of the world, and quiets the cacophony in Yuuri’s mind.

The frantic, jittery notes die down as the music returns to the familiar melody of the first two verses, the violin calming itself at around the same time that Yuuri does, a little bit. He skates out of a spin towards the center of the rink, building up speed. Shutting his eyes, he imagines that he’s just practicing, with only Viktor in the audience.

_(“When you skate, it’s like you’re creating music with your body.”)_

Triple lutz.

_(“Beats and notes in every sweep of your leg, a crescendo before you jump.”)_

Triple flip, triple toe combo. This one is less clean, because he pops it half a second too early, and so he’s not sure he got all the rotations in for the triple toe.

What would Viktor say, if he were here? Yuuri shushes the useless voice in his head that says _but he’s not, he’s in Chicago, with Chris_ , and replaces it with Viktor’s instead. _It’s fine_ , he’d say. _It could have been worse. You’ll nail the next one._ Viktor would encourage him.

The triple loop that follows is clean, textbook even. The crowd certainly seems to think so. But Yuuri’s not listening to them.

Because Viktor would always encourage him.

_(“It’s entrancing.”)_

And… he’s certainly had to do it a lot, hasn’t he? As he skates his heart out to the step sequence, fighting the pain and the exhaustion that’s seeped into his bones, he thinks of how many times he’s shown up a mess at Viktor’s door, and how many times Viktor’s talked him down, again and again and again, and… he thinks he understands, now.

This pit in his stomach… this bitterness, ugly and the loud, that’s had a stranglehold of his emotions and his sanity since yesterday… maybe it has nothing to do with Chris at all. That Instagram post and all of the speculation it caused probably made up the proverbial last straw, sure. But at the end of the day, it’s something much, much simpler:

_I’m… not good enough for him._

How could he ever hope to have been? Viktor is a fount of talent, haunted yes but _perfect_ , who swept all of the competitions of his chosen craft in his prime. He’s kind, and he’s eloquent, and he’s travelled the world and drawn people far and wide to his side like moths to a bright, brilliant flame. He’s beautiful -- he’s _so_ beautiful. So much so that it hurts.

And for all that he’s supposed to have fallen for Yuuri himself, or so he claims anyway, how did that happen? When Yuuri was so drunk that he didn’t remember any of what he might have said or done the morning after? How is he supposed to live up to, or compete with, a version of himself that _he_ doesn’t even know?

How is he supposed to trust that this will last, now that Viktor knows who he really is?

Yuuri feels the doubt, and the self-loathing, squeezing at his chest as he prepares for his last jump. It’s a triple salchow; he should be able to do it in his sleep. Play it safe, Celestino’s voice echoes in his mind. Play it safe, his aching muscles and bones beg of him. Play it safe.

But he’s already building up more speed, and before he knows it, he’s already turned it into a quad.

He falls, landing hard on his hip. Everything else protests, threatening to break; he has to bite back a scream. But he gets up, and forces himself to push on.

There’s a small ghost of a smile that tugs at the corner of his lips, sad, as he finishes up his combination spin. _I’m a dime-a-dozen figure skater certified by the Japan Skating Federation._ What a tragic mistake on the JSF’s part, he thinks to himself. Though he got all four rotations in, that sorry excuse for a landing dashed any hopes of that gamble paying off. But that’s just like him, though, isn’t it? When he tries his best to rise above, so often, he falls short anyway.

…Viktor deserves better.

 

* * *

 

In the end, he still gets first place. His Short Program score from yesterday blew everyone else’s out of the water, and it was more than enough to win.

Later, when he looks at the official picture of the winners that the triplets manage to get their hands on from somewhere online, he looks at the image of himself standing on top of the podium, and thinks that despite his smile, he’s never quite looked so sad.

 

* * *

 

The car that Celestino hired to take him to the airport picks him up at the stadium, because he has a very long flight to look forward to, and a very small buffer between the time he lands in Detroit and the time he has to hit the road again to accompany one of his junior students to a competition. Yuuri has a couple more days to spend here, but the _moment_ he lands in Detroit, Celestino promises, they’re going to sit down, and have a long talk.

Yuuri is decidedly not looking forward to that talk. He spends most of the train ride back home with his head buried in a sushi plushie, pretending to nap. This seems to be the one time in his life where ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ actually works, because at some point he realizes he’s too tired to mope, and the next second Minako-sensei is shaking him gently awake.

“We’re here,” she says softly. She doesn’t say much more, but he feels her eyes on him as they disembark.

He still won, and so he still gets an extra large bowl of _katsudon_ for dinner. All of his attempts to help clean up after the meal are waved away. “Get some rest, dear,” his mother says. She presses a kiss onto the top of his head. “You’ve had a very long day.”

When he finally checks his phone again, as he’s just about to turn in for the night, there’s a single text from Viktor waiting. 

 

 

> **Viktor**
> 
> _Hey! How did it go?_

 

 

Yuuri stares at the message for a long time, thinking about how to respond. Honesty would mean ‘awful’, or ‘terrible’. _Glad it’s over, but I’m in a lot of pain._ He’s typing up something close to that last one when he hesitates, because he knows that what will come next is Viktor worrying about him, asking a million questions. And Yuuri will placate him on each one of them even though, deep down, no, no, he’s not fine at all. But, as he decided today, Viktor deserves better than to be a constant dumping ground of Yuuri’s sadness and insecurities.

 

 

> **Viktor**
> 
> _Good. Managed to get 1st. Qualified_ _  
> _ _for nationals._
> 
> _Congratulations!!_
> 
> _So proud of you. I knew you could do_ _  
> _ _it :)_

 

 

He starts composing a response: _I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry._ He couldn’t skate to the piece Viktor worked so hard to compose and play, music he didn’t have to give to Yuuri at all, but he did anyway. And Yuuri squandered all of that love, and he’s not even sure he would have had the guts to use it even if he _hadn’t_ taken that nasty fall during the warm-up. His head hurts, but his heart hurts something worse.

 

 

> **Viktor**
> 
> _Have you watched it?_
> 
> _Not yet_
> 
> _Trying to find a site that doesn’t look like it_ _  
> _ _might give my computer chlamydia_

 

 

It really was a small event, much smaller than any of the Grand Prix competitions for sure, but Yuuri knows that there should be footage of it floating around on the internet by now. Not all of the material that the triplets use for the yearly mashup videos they send him on his birthday is self-filmed, and they must be getting the rest of it from somewhere. It’s only a matter of time.

Yuuri hopes that whatever website Viktor eventually finds won’t include video of the warm-up. But he’s been having a terrible track record for hopes and outcomes lately.

 

 

> **Viktor**
> 
> _I’m going to bed now_
> 
> _Oh of course, it’s late there isn’t it?_
> 
> _Good night!_
> 
> _Sleep well_

 

 

He’s nowhere near asleep when his phone buzzes relentlessly. Viktor is calling him. Yuuri lets it go on until the buzzing stops, but soon it starts up again, and he has to wait it out again. “Don’t,” he whispers. “Don’t waste your time on me.”

Viktor tries three more times, before finally, finally, Yuuri gets silence.

Or so he thinks, because about ten minutes later, when he _still_ hasn’t quite fallen asleep, his phone buzzes once. It’s an email this time, still from Viktor, but with an audio file attached to the message: 

 

 

> _A little something if you need help getting to sleep. Sorry if the quality isn’t the best._
> 
> _Love,_ _  
> _ _Viktor_

 

 

It hurts, just how well Viktor knows him. Yuuri plugs in his headphones and holds his phone to his chest, and he lets Viktor’s piano [ lull him to rest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDJh6KGU6JA).

 

* * *

 

The long, long journey back to Detroit is made longer by the fact that his flight out of Japan remains grounded for the first two hours. This starts a chain reaction of misfortune that has him missing his connecting flight, and he has to wait even longer before he can get on the next one. He keeps his phone on airplane mode the whole time he’s waiting, starting a mobile game about raising koi fish that Yuuko recommended. It was supposed to help with anxiety, she told him. It kind of works, but his phone is dead by the time he finally lands in Detroit.

Yuuri heaves a sigh as he finally retrieves his bag from the carousel. He’ll have to pay through the nose if he wants a cab, but he’s tired and everything hurts, so it’s a price he’ll play gladly tonight.

With half of his mind focused on following the signs for ‘Ground Transportation’, Yuuri finally forces himself to come to terms with what he’s supposed to do. He spent his last two days in Japan doing anything _but_ thinking, from helping out a bit at the _onsen_ to taking the triplets out for ramen. On his last night there, he paused in the middle of a run across the bridge, staring at Hasetsu against the sunset, a sleepy town already winding down for the day. He wondered, then, if the next time he comes back home might be for good.

It may very well be. This season was supposed to be his last shot, one more try to shoot for the moon and see if he can make it even halfway there. He’ll still finish the season; he’s already invested so much time and effort into it, and so many other people have given him so much support. If only for them, he needs to see this through to the end.

And after that…?

The Arrivals area is full of people waiting and talking in a loud, unintelligible din. Somewhere in the distance, a baby cries; somewhere closer, a dog barks. Yuuri keeps his head down low, and moves on.

He supposes he’s already made up his mind. After this season, he’ll retire.

What comes after that isn’t too clear to him yet -- maybe he’ll finish his degree, maybe he’ll go home to Hasetsu. He can figure out the rest of the details then. As for Viktor… well, though it hurts to think about it, this is probably for the best as well. All Yuuri does is hold him back and cause trouble for him. And when he’s not doing _that_ , he’s stewing in jealousy over something small, something that he’s too much of a coward to confront Viktor or Chris about anyway. Though he tries so hard, he’s unable to just… trust.

And that’s unfair, and that’s wrong. Love is supposed to be selfless and self-sacrificing, isn’t it? That’s the thought that he turned over and over in his head on the plane, until by the time it touched down, there was only one possible outcome that made sense.

If he loves Viktor… really _loves_ him… then the one, good thing that he can do for him is…

Another bark interrupts his thoughts. It sounds like the same dog from earlier, but the sound is even closer now. Yuuri raises his head and scans the Arrivals area, trying to find the source of the sound. His eyes eventually land on… a very familiar brown poodle, straining against her leash which has been wound around an armrest.

“Makkachin?” Yuuri shifts his gaze just a bit to the left, and locks eyes with the person on the seat next to her.

A beat passes, and before he knows it, he’s already running.

Despite everything -- all of the worry and guilt, and all of the resolve he built up to do right by Viktor by _one day walking away_ \-- there’s something inside of Yuuri that buckles and snaps at the sight of him here. And he’s unable to even breathe until he’s finally closed the distance between them, and thrown himself into Viktor’s waiting, open arms.

“It’s okay. Shhhh, I’ve got you.” Yuuri barely even registers that he’s sobbing into Viktor’s shoulder, or that he’s got a death grip on the back of Viktor’s coat like he’s terrified to let go. Maybe he is, on some level. Viktor’s hand finds the back of his head and he pulls Yuuri closer, shielding him from the whispers and the stares. “I’ve got you,” he says again, quietly, into Yuuri’s ear.

Yuuri doesn’t know how long they stand there, and how much time he spends crying it out. All of the hurt and frustration he’s bottled up over the past few days -- because Hasetsu sees him as a hero, and he can’t break in front of them without shattering something else -- come rushing out of him in a torrent that doesn’t seem to end. And he hates that he’s doing this, because exactly the last thing he wants to do is be a burden on Viktor again.

But… maybe it’s not so bad? To let himself have this moment of selfishness, knowing that these moments will end someday?

He finally pulls back when he feels he can breathe again. Makkachin is standing on her hind legs, pawing at his arm, and he lets out a broken little laugh and greets her too. “I… don’t understand,” he says to Viktor when he finds his voice. “W-why are you here? You said, your work trip -- ”

“I cut it short.”

Yuuri feels the guilt flooding back. _Really?_

“I learned about what happened.” Viktor wipes away some of the tears on his cheeks with the pad of his thumb. “You clearly didn’t want to talk about it, and I respect it if you still don’t. But I thought, maybe you’d be tired, and you’d be travelling alone and…” He finally smiles, and jerks his head in the vague direction of one of the exits. “I still have that rental car. Let me take you home? Or wherever you want to go from here. Just say the word.”

There are many words to say, words about Chicago and Chris and crutches and self-sacrifice. But Yuuri only nods, and manages one. “Home.”

“Yours?” He shakes his head. “Okay. Now?” He shakes his head again. “Okay. That’s okay. Whenever you’re ready.”

Yuuri rests his head on Viktor’s shoulder again, and Viktor lets him. The people who were watching them earlier must have lost interest, because the crowd is in a constant flux as he stares into space.

Just like them, he needs to move on.

“Viktor, I need to know -- ”

“Yuuri, I was thinking -- ”

They both start at the same time, and stop at the same time. Yuuri pulls back as Viktor chuckles. Despite the bags under his eyes and his slightly-tousled hair, probably from having slept in this airport, he’s still the most beautiful man Yuuri has ever seen.

 _One last moment of weakness, of selfishness._ If this season was meant to be his last shot… if there’s already one long chapter of his life that he’s decided to close after Worlds… then he might as well make the most of the time he has left.

“Will -- will you keep making music for me?” he says. “For as long as I’m skating?”

If Viktor looks surprised at that, it only lasts for a moment. He takes one of Yuuri’s hands and brings it to his lips, kissing it in the same tender, fervent way as he did when Yuuri once locked them both out of the bar -- the night they promised to ‘start over’. “It kind of sounds like a marriage proposal,” he murmurs, “doesn’t it?”

What? Yuuri can’t help the huff of a laugh that leaves his lips. He’s right, he realizes, recalling the vague, traditional Japanese proposals mired in language that’s soft, and gentle, but eternally indirect. _Will you make miso soup for me every morning? Would you like to lie in the same grave with me one day?_ And then the person proposed to would respond with something equally vague, and just as sweet.

How Viktor even knows about that is a mystery to him. _I guess so?_ he doesn’t say, but a tiny lift of his shoulders says it doesn’t matter. He’s still waiting for an answer, after all.

The answer he gets is Viktor pulling him into another embrace. Caged in his arms, Yuuri feels his resolve crack when Viktor whispers, “Then I wish you would keep skating forever.”

 _One last moment of weakness_ , is what he tells himself again, when the tears return and the words threaten to rend his heart into pieces. At that moment, with the weight of his failures and the words he hasn’t said, and the challenges still lined up for the rest of the season to come, he makes one final concession to himself, and sketches his line in the sand once and for all.

“I’ll do my best to win,” he says, somehow finding the strength to keep his voice steady. “The Grand Prix, Worlds -- everything. I’ll win it all for you.”

_And if I don’t… I’ll let you go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music featured in this chapter:  
> \- [I Love You (For Sentimental Reasons)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oWbzT_oAJ0) by Nat King Cole  
> \- My One and Only Love by Guy Wood: [cover](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecrE80rnjhw) by John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman | [piano arrangement](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDJh6KGU6JA) by Alfonso Gugliucci  
> \- The pieces for both programs that Yuuri skates in this chapter have been featured before, in chapters 2 and 3. But those were an eternity ago, so here they are again: Short Program - [Lullaby of Birdland](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDDYO8zYA8U) (Teddy Wilson Trio) | Free Skate - Massenet’s [_Méditation_ from _Thaïs_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLhvMgucWns) (Izthak Perlman and the Abbey Road Ensemble)
> 
> For anyone who was wondering, Yuuri’s Short Program costume is basically Yuri P.’s costume in History Maker, save for a few very small differences. His costume for his _Stammi Vicino_ Free Skate (i.e. the one he _didn’t_ skate in this chapter) is his costume from his Exhibition Program in canon.
> 
> For something completely unrelated: if any of you guys are into fanzines, I wrote a little something for [Kamome: A Soft Viktor Zine](https://softviktorzine.tumblr.com/post/168090463904/were-pleased-to-announce-that-the-preorders-for), for which preorders are open until December 16th! If you guys are interested in fic+art of all of the softest Viktors, please check it out! ♥
> 
> (Next chapter: Skate America! And Yuuri vs. Alcohol, Round 2 ^_^)

**Author's Note:**

> I sort-of accidentally a tumblr: [orchids-and-fictional-cities](http://orchids-and-fictional-cities.tumblr.com), feel free to come yell at/with/in the general direction of me!  
> 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tribute To a Text At 23:44](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12938421) by [nikeforova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikeforova/pseuds/nikeforova)




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